Ghostbusters: Des Moines
by spazenport
Summary: When Iowa is struck with a ridiculously sharp increase in paranormal visitations Jordan Ross and Cynthia Palmer decide to invest in the Ghostbusters franchise and spiritually bust some heads, and potentially turn a profit. I'm working on episodes between working on chapters of some of my other works, and hope to put them out on a regular schedule.
1. Episode 1: Pilot

Episode 1: Pilot

Blake Hulner pushed through the corn stalks as if he was running from a fire. In his hand, he gripped his sister's and pulled her along. Regina Hulner was doing everything that she could to keep her feet under her as she allowed her brother to pull her along.

At 23, Regina was hoping to find out what her brother had been up to that was taking up his nights. She was bored and had nagged her brother, two years older than she was, to let her join him. He had finally agreed, but the look on Blake's face showed that he was regretting the decision more and more every second.

The corn field was about an hour west of Ames, Iowa. As they pushed deeper into the corn, Regina was becoming incredibly concerned about what her brother had been up to the last few weeks. Late night corn mazes? Deer poaching? Crop circles?

The aimless running continued with Blake randomly declaring how late they were. Finally, they broke through into a clearing.

The clearing could have been a crop circle based on it's size, but it wasn't. The circle of hooded figures and the bonfire were a little more than the aliens tended to leave behind when marking up Iowan fields.

As the broke into the clearing, Blake's hand was suddenly gone from Regina's. She slowed as her brother stepped forward.

Each of the hooded figures was chanting at the fire. There hands were high in the air as if they could amplify the chanting. The words were unintelligible as far as Regina knew, but she didn't know more than English and a little bit of Spanish.

As she slowed, Blake continued toward the circle. When he was almost in line to take his place among the cloaked worshipers, one of them threw back his hood and took large steps toward her brother. As his hood fell down around his shoulders, Regina thought he looked a lot like Donald Sutherland. His white hair was swept back from a high forehead and wrapped around his face to make a well-kept beard and mustache.

"Blake," he said, at first with open arms before his eyes landed on Regina and a scowl flashed across his face. It was only there for a brief moment before it returned to the welcoming smile. Regina hadn't missed it.

"Chairman," Blake returned the greeting and as they approached each other, they hugged and pulled away.

"Blake, who is your friend?" the Chairman never took his eyes off of Blake as he asked.

"This is my sister," Blake answered. "I thought that she might be able to join us this evening." He paused, aware that he might have made a mistake in bringing her. "I hope that I haven't overstepped my bounds."

The Sutherland-looking Chairman nodded slowly. "Well, normally it would be a little late in our preparations to bring anyone new in." He shook his head slowly. "You almost put us in quite the spot, Brother Blake. You're late, and we couldn't have pulled this off without you." The Chairman gestured toward Regina, "Bringing her could have thrown off our balance."  
Blake's eyes fell in disappointment. Regina was confused. Her brother had never been one to show his emotions so clearly, but with the Chairman he was very expressive. He wanted this man to know what he was thinking and that he respected his opinion. It was an odd sight.

"Chin up, boy," the Chairman continued. "Tonight is the last night, and another body can't hurt anything. Any other night would have been a problem, but tonight the preparations are complete. We need only turn the key."

Regina wasn't quite sure what was going on but decided not to say anything. The whole situation was freaking her out, but she knew that her brother respected this odd man, and she wasn't going to jeopardize that, so she remained quiet.

The Chairman walked over to Regina. "Miss, would you mind standing at the edge of the clearing while we do our work?" He put his finger to his lips and said quietly, "We'll need you to be quiet and still. Can you do that for us?" The gentleness in his voice was intended to help ingratiate her to him, but it only added to the fear that was growing in her gut.

Regina stepped back until she felt the corn stalks pressing against her back. She watched as Blake followed the Chairman toward the edge of the circle. He was about to raise his own hands and join in with the others in the group when the Chairman touched his arm, said something inaudible, and pointed toward the fire. Blake looked confused and took an unsure step toward the fire. The Chairman nodded and Blake became more sure of what he was doing. He walked to the center and stood close to the bonfire. Regina continued to watch as her brother got to his knees and then spread his arms out wide.

All around them, the chanting grew to a crescendo. As their volume rose, so did the fear crawling it's way up Regina's spine.

Blake began rocking back and forth. At first, Regina thought it might have been the heat from the fire causing the air to shimmer, but within moments Blake was visibly rocking back and forth in time with the chants. After about five minutes of the odd worship, Blake collapsed forward. As suddenly as Blake had collapsed, the chanting stopped and all of the hooded figures dropped their arms.

When the chanting was happening, Regina had been hoping for quiet, but the silence turned out to be terrifying by comparison. It was heavy with something that she couldn't put her finger on.

To her relief, the silence was broken by the Chairman.

"Fear not, brothers!" He was shouting. "Brother Blake is preparing the way. Soon the world will know the power of Erra!"

Instead of calming Regina's concerns for her brother, her worry for her brother grew. The word or name 'Erra' sent shudders down her spine, but she didn't recognize it. If the word hadn't carried with it such emotion, she would have thought she had misheard it.

Suddenly, Blake was on his feet. His eyes found her and they were his for only a second before they were replaced with something that Regina didn't recognize.

"The door is open," Blake said in a booming voice that didn't belong to him, "but first, the path must be cleared."

Regina wasn't sure if she had walked toward the Chairman or if he had been making his way toward her, but he was standing beside her when she asked, "What does he mean by that?"

The Chairman seemed overly excited by the events, but also by having an audience to explain. His face was animated as he said, "Erra has a long way to travel and there are many spirits that need to get out of his way." His smile seemed inappropriate with all that was going on. "Imagine a pipe filled with souls. At one end is our world, and at the other end is the God Erra. Your brother has volunteered as the end in our world, and the pipe is about to be..." he stopped as Blake threw his head back and orbs of different colored lights began launching themselves from her brother's mouth.

"...flushed," the Chairman finished.

A roar built up as more and more orbs left Blake's mouth, shaping into a spinning funnel of light and energy.

Regina found her strength and was running toward her brother. The circle of hooded figures was thick and she had to fight to get past them. As she pushed further into the crowd, Regina watched as the orbs flew into the sky, into the earth, into the corn field, and then one by one into each of the members of the circle. While they were crowded tightly together, there were only around a dozen of the hooded figures in the circle, and as the orbs entered their chests, they're faces contorted for the briefest of moments before they spun and ran into the corn.

One orb flew at her, and Regina twisted to avoid it. It flew past her and into a hooded figure behind her. As she twisted around, Regina noted that she couldn't see the Chairman anywhere. She straightened up and took another step toward Blake when another orb came at her. The orb stopped instead of hitting her, and she saw that it wasn't an orb. Instead of a ball of light, it was an orange skeletal being. It had a face and arms, but it was transparent and that same face had teeth at least six inches long. It's arms were twice the length of it's torso and instead of legs the body looked as if it had been torn in half. The 'not-an-orb' was dragging transparent intestines instead of legs.

It seemed to be examining Regina as she froze in her terror. After what seemed like an eternity, the 'not-an-orb' let loose a scream that made Regina fall to her knees. It flew up, arced around her and then slammed into the ground with a plume of soil.

Regina was shuddering and mumbling to herself as she crawled the final distance between herself and her brother.

She reached out to him, and as her hand touched his chest, his head tilted forward and Regina could see Blake's eyes. They were the eyes of her brother and not whatever had been in there before.

"Regina, please," he gasped as if struggling with some inner demon. "Run!"

Regina watched as her brother's eyes were replaced again and an otherworldly grin stretched across his face.

Then she ran.

"No, you're not understanding," Jordan Ross was explaining in the middle of a privately owned coffee shop in downtown Des Moines. "It's a franchise. You and I would put forward the capital to purchase the materials, the equipment, and the office. We take some courses and get certified in the use of the equipment and standard procedure, and the franchise would supply us with any other resources, including research materials and access to corporate if we need any assistance."

Cynthia Palmer frowned at Jordan. She was wearing women's slacks and a tucked in green shirt. "Why not just put the capital into something that's entirely ours?"

Jordan nodded, "We could do that, but we would miss out on the global recognition and the reputation that the branding carries with it. We'd be turning down guaranteed clients. This would give us a leg up, and we still get to keep all of the profits." He took a sip of his coffee. "Besides, the franchise already has a standing government contract. If we decided to do this on our own, we would be saying no to easy government money."

"How much would we need to invest in this?" Cynthia asked.

Jordan looked up at the ceiling and started counting off the costs on his fingers. "They require a minimum of four people on the team. To fully gear up four people would take $10,000.00. Plus the rental cost for an office, a car and the insurance, and the containment unit to be installed at the office." He looked at his fingers as if the numbers were all right there. "Around $30,000.00."

Cynthia was about to balk at the figure that Jordan had quoted her when something else stopped her. "Containment unit? What's that for?"

Jordan gave her a look that seemed to ask if she was joking or not. "To store the ghosts we capture." He paused. "You do know what the Ghostbusters do, right?"

Cynthia shrugged. "It's kind of in the name," she took a sip of her tea. "Didn't they save New York a long time ago?"

Jordan smiled, excited to talk about it. "Actually, it was twice. Back in the eighties, they stopped a Sumerian God from reigning Hell on Earth. Then they also stopped an emotion feeding parasite from a few thousand years ago from bringing his hate filled war to our time." He shrugged. "They didn't just save New York. They saved the world."

Cynthia returned his look with one of her own. It clearly stated, "Sure they did."

Jordan ignored her look and continued. "The point still stands. If you Google the most haunted places in America, most of them are in the midwest and most of those are in Iowa." His eyes were wide with an excitement that bordered on obsession. "We are currently sitting on the off-ramp to a cross-dimensional superhighway."

Cynthia snorted, but asked, "What does that even mean?"

"It means that we can make money doing this. Lots of money," Jordan answered.

Cynthia went quiet as she fell into herself to contemplate what she was being told. Jordan knew what she was doing and also quieted down as he returned to his cup of coffee.

Cynthia was ex-military. She had served in the Army for a decade starting in 2002. Since then she had been working as an accountant for the state. She was looking for any reason she could to get out of it, and if this franchise plan could actually make them money, it might be worth the investment, but she had to weigh the options. She had to look at every angle and figure out the holes.

The first hole was fairly obvious.

"I don't believe in ghosts," Cynthia said after a full minute of silence. "If I'm going to invest in some pest removal service that focuses on ghosts, then you need to convince me that they exist."

"You don't believe in ghosts? How are we friends?"

Cynthia shrugged, "This sounds like a really big scam to me." She pulled the papers that Jordan had resting between them closer so she could take a closer look. "If we invest thirty thousand dollars to this..." she glanced down and then back to Jordan, "Venkman guy, he'll give us a bunch a couple of glow sticks to wave around until we're bankrupt and broken." Cynthia shook her head. "Sounds fake."

"Did you not hear me about the government contracts?" Jordan countered. "The city and state governments believe in it enough to have set up Paranormal Contracts Oversight Commissions boards to regulate and monitor the paranormal activity in given principalities." He threw up his hands, "Even if you don't believe in ghosts, the people with the money do."

Cynthia nodded, "And that's why I haven't laughed at you and left. Friends or not, this is crazy, but you're right, it does sound like there's money in it, but I can't sell something that I don't believe in."

"What are you saying?"

Cynthia slid his files back to him. "Convince me that ghosts exist, and I'll put in my half toward the investment. We'll be full partners, but you have to convince me."

Jordan smiled. "Is that all?"

Cynthia suddenly felt like she had been led into a trap, but she stuck to her guns and nodded as an answer.

Quicker than she thought her friend was capable, Jordan whipped out his smartphone and started swiping through screens.

Jordan flipped it around to show her the application that he was loading up. On the load screen was a characterization of a ghost pressing through a red circle with a line through it. It was spinning as the app loaded.

"They have an app," Jordan said with a smirk.

Cynthia sighed, "Of course they do."

Jordan stood and moved to the chair closer to Cynthia so that he could show her the screen of his phone and still see it himself. The screen soon turned into a map of the city of Des Moines with a marker showing their current location. All around the location marker, smaller version of the load screen logo started popping up.

"The app is free and when people see a spook they put a pin in the map and enter details. This is real-time."

Despite Cynthia's hesitancy, she was impressed by the level of community integration that the franchise had employed.

"There," Jason said excitedly. "Historic Doyle Herman House." He touched the icon and the map expanded into details about the location and the spirit there. "They are open for tours, we can see one now."

"Now?" Cynthia had expected Jordan to jump into a lengthy argument about the potential of life after death, but this was a proposal to see an actual ghost.

"Yeah, let's go." He stood and dropped his empty coffee cup into the garbage. "You can drive."

Cynthia owned an older pickup that was red. There was rust under the doors, but it ran and that's all that mattered to her.

Ten minutes after Jordan had opened the Ghostbuster Application on his phone, they were walking into Historic Doyle Herman House in downtown Des Moines.

The house was in the historic area of downtown Des Moines and had a full staff that offered tours and showcased local events in it's attached grand theater.

Cynthia and Jordan took a few steps past the large double doors and were greeted by a small lobby that was more reminiscent of an old movie theater or playhouse than a historic mansion. To the right was the windowed ticket booth with stairs opposite. Directly in front of the double doors was a hall that led to the main auditorium and the tours beyond it.

Self-guided tours were only five dollars each, so Jordan bought them both tickets and nodded toward the nearby staircase.

"Can we go up there?"

Through the ticket window, a very bored teenager nodded, "Just a few rooms up that way. The majority of the house is down the hall.

Jordan thanked her and together he and Cynthia started climbing the stairs to the second floor landing. When they reached the top, Jordan, who had been carrying an over the shoulder bag with him all day, stopped and pulled a small device from the bag.

It looked homemade out of the clear box that iPhones come in. The casing was filled with a bunch of wiring and LED's that lit up when Jordan hit a button. A bar graph of green lights shown bright.

"It's an EMF detector," Jordan explained. "Spirits can be detected through their effect on electromagnetic fields or more accurately through psychokinetic energy. Since we don't have a PKE meter yet, this EMF detector will have to do."

"You keep talking, but I haven't lost this bet yet," Cynthia countered with a smirk.

Jordan returns her smile and starts walking down the hall. "This way."

The halls were ornately decorated with intricate carvings in the edging and framed pictures of the house throughout the years. As they kept walking, the EMF detector would peak or fall as Jordan aimed it in different directions. They continued like that for the length of the hall until they came to a door that was open, but roped off. It was meant to be seen and people weren't supposed to go in.

Jordan winked at Cynthia and unclipped the velvet rope. They both highly doubted that the teenager from the ticket window was going to come charging up there.

Cynthia stopped only a few steps into the room, which turned out to be some sort of library or study. There were books on shelves that lined the walls. In the center of the room was a very uncomfortable looking chair next to a side table and a globe. She stood there while Jordan continued to walk around the room, following the EMF detector as it led him around the room.

"If I understand EMF correctly," Cynthia said, "how do you know you're not just finding all of the signals from the security cameras or whatever?"

Jordan stopped and turned slowly to face Cynthia. A smile spread across his face and, instead of answering Cynthia, he raised his hand slowly and pointed at the globe.

It was spinning.

As Cynthia stared, the globe began to spin faster and faster. Within seconds a hand could be seen floating only a few inches above. As the translucent hand became more visible, the effect began to spread. The hand grew into an arm, the arm became a torso, and within seconds a transparent man was standing next to the globe. He was a bald man with a long brown beard. He was dressed in period clothing in the form of a vest with an overcoat. While one hand hovered above the globe, his other hand was hidden behind his back.

If it wasn't for the fact that Cynthia could see directly through him, the sunken eyes and gaping hole in his throat gave every indication that she was looking at a dead man.

Jordan tore his eyes away from the spirit to look at Cynthia who's own eyes had filled with terror. Jordan hissed quietly to grab Cynthia's attention. She looked at him, but the fear didn't leave her eyes. He jabbed a finger at the wall behind Cynthia and she fought to turn her head to look at what her friend was pointing at.

It was a painting of the same man who's spirit stood in front of them.

"That's Doyle Herman, the original owner of the house," Jordan whispered.

Cynthia looked back at the ghost of Doyle Herman and his mouth stretched to ridiculous proportions as his eyes grew wider and sunk even deeper into his head.

Those deep eyes were staring directly at Cynthia. With a sudden roar the came from somewhere unearthly, the ghost launched itself at Cynthia. She froze in terror as his mouth went wide and his arms shot out in front of him. Suddenly, Cynthia was being lifted into the air by one of those spirit hands being pressed into her chest. It didn't grip her, but she was definitely picked up by the open hand.

Cynthia was slammed into the painting on the wall behind her, and the ghost kept traveling forward, through her and then through the wall. A thick mucus covered her chest, head, and wall wherever Doyle Herman passed through.

Gravity quickly reasserted itself, and Cynthia fell to the ground.

"What the hell?" She shouted as she shook the slime from her arms.

"That was amazing!" Jordan ran over to his friend and helped her to her feet. "What did it feel like?"

"Like someone just body slammed me into a wall before blowing his nose on me."

Jordan's grin was almost as large as Doyle's had been. "This is great."

"No, it's not," Cynthia countered. She sighed. "I'm in."

"What?" Jordan's eyes went wide.

"I'm in," Cynthia repeated. "I'll invest in the franchise." She looked down at her slimed clothes. "It's the only way I'll get payback on this asshole."

Jordan smiled with excitement.

"Wipe that smile off of your face," Cynthia added. "We still need two more Ghostbusters."

Simon Franco had put the advertisement on Craigslist only a few days before getting his first reply to it. It was very short, but he thought that it got the point across nicely. "Certified Engineer and all-around Genius looking for Freelance Projects."

In the body of the post, he had posted his entire resume, including his two doctorates from Columbia University and then a link to his Tumblr page that outlined all of his personal projects. Those projects ranged from growing and converting algae into an energy source using only kitchen supplies and time, to the isolation and containment of energy signatures to listen to hijack encrypted broadcasts.

He had a day job, but no matter how hard he worked, he was still bored out of his mind. The side projects and hobbies helped a little, but they just weren't enough. He wanted corporate sized projects and ground-breaking new ideas to work with. Not things that he could solve in an hour from his phone.

The reply to his ad was short but it had peeked Simon's interest.

"If you're interested in full-time pay and equipment that deals directly with particle physics in real-world applications, please meet us at the following address on Saturday." There was an address included and a zip file filled with several schematics that had further excited Simon's interests.

As he pulled up, he took in the average office park with rental signs and a few technology companies throughout. The side of the building the address was on was empty.

He parked next to a large red pickup truck with rust on the bottom. Leaning against it was a tall and serious looking blonde woman and a man with round cheeks who was a little shorter than the woman.

Simon got out of his car and stuck out his hand. "Simon Franco."

The woman took his hand and shook it. Her grip was strong. "Cynthia Palmer," she nodded to her companion as Simon shook his hand. "This is Jordan Ross."

"Have you had a chance to look over the documents we sent you?" Jordan asked his own excitement was clear.

Simon nodded and pulled a large sketch pad from the back seat of his car. "Yes," he handed the sketchpad to Jordan. "I made some modifications, reduced heat consumption, made them lighter." He frowned, "It looked like those designs were made in the eighties."

Jordan smiled and took the sketch pad like a thirsty man grabbing at a glass of water.

Cynthia frowned. "Do you understand what those schematics build?"

Simon shrugged, "From the designs I can tell that they are used for the the capture and containment of specific energies." He smiled, "Since I've been to New York a few times in a my life, I can also say that they are Ghostbuster Proton Packs. Are you starting a local franchise?"

Jordan nodded, "Yes, we are, and we'd like-"

Cynthia held up her hand. "You know they're for capturing ghosts and you're still here?"

Simon raised an eyebrow. "Yes, why?"

"You believe in ghosts?" She pressed.

Simon's eyebrows leveled out. "I'm a scientist. It was proven thirty years ago when that giant campfire goody was stomping around Manhattan that ghosts are real. After the papers put out by Dr. Spengler in the mid-nineties and the interviews with Doctors Venkman and Zeddemore it's obvious that, at the very least, there are entities made of energy that take on human form. They can be pests and the removal of them as a service is required. If calling them ghosts is the best we have, than I am completely on board." He shrugged again, "Besides, if there's a steady paycheck and the chance to play with particle physics, I'll believe anything you ask me to."

Cynthia allowed the corner of her mouth to raise in a small smile. "Welcome aboard."

They all shook hands again and then Jordan turned toward the nearest office in the office park.

"Welcome to the headquarters of Ghostbusters: Des Moines!"

"That's still only three Ghostbusters," Cynthia said.

Jordan nodded and reached into the back of the truck for a box that was almost too big for him to carry.

"That's true," he replied, "but they only needed us to purchase four of everything, with the justification of a fourth Ghostbusters." His face turned a little sheepish. "I might have already gone ahead and ordered everything." He pulled a large magnet of the No Ghosts logo and slapped it onto the side of Cynthia's pickup truck. "It all arrived yesterday." Jordan aimed a thumb over his shoulder at their newly announced headquarters. "Everything is inside waiting to be set up."

As one, they walked toward their new headquarters until Jordan stopped right outside the door. He reached into the box and pulled out a large light sign with the Ghostbusters No Ghost logo on it. It was about two feet by two feet. He set it by his feet. "We'll need to hang this."

He left it leaning against the wall and they walked into the building after he passed out their RFID key cards.

Simon was the last one in and he was just as surprised as Cynthia was by what he saw. Instead of a fully assembled and unpacked office, the large and wide open room had a few cubicles set up and a bunch of boxes and crates and stacked and cluttering the whole area.

"Some assembly required," he breathed.

Jordan nodded and started ticking off of his fingers as he recounted what they needed to do, "Yes, we're going to need to assemble the proton packs, the multitude of sensors for picking up local Psychokinetic readings, individual PKE meters, jumpsuits, phones, computers, portable dimensionometer, the containment unit, the desks, the chairs, the list goes on and on."

Cynthia slapped Jordan and Simon on their backs, "I'll leave you two brainy boys to figuring this out. Let me know how it goes." She turned to leave but Jordan grabbed her arm.

"I don't think so." Jordan smiled but raised his eyebrow. "This is an all weekend job if the three of us work on it. Only two of us and this business will never take off."

Cynthia's heart sank. "Then let's get to work."

Monday morning saw each of the exhausted Ghostbusters waking up to the doorbell of their office going off. They had worked around the clock to get everything assembled and set up and hadn't finished until late Sunday night. Once Cynthia had seen Jordan and Simon passed out in their newly assembled cubicles, she decided to prop her own feet up and pass out in her own.

The doorbell's chime caused Jordan to fall from his chair and Simon didn't wake at all. Cynthia, on the other hand was already waking up and was only surprised that the door would be ringing at all.

She glanced at her watch and noticed that it was only a few minutes before eight in the morning.

Standing, she went and opened the door to find a portly older man with a very thick mustache.

"Can I help you?"

"I hope so," he answered and stuck out his hand. "I'm Will Horton and I'm trying to find the Ghostbusters," he pointed to their recently mounted sign above the door as he said it.

Cynthia followed his gesture up to the sign and still found that it felt weird to say her next words, "That's us. Come on in."

Sometime while Cynthia was outside, Simon had woke up and joined Jordan while they stood and waited.

"This is Jordan and Simon," Cynthia said as introductions. "Guys, this is Will Horton." She turned back to Will. How can we help?"

"I'm the current custodian of the Doyle Herman House," Jordan's eyes lit up as Will explained. "The haunting at the house is old news, but recently Doyle's spirit has been more...aggressive. Before it was only sightings. People would see someone drift between rooms, or late at night they would claim that they could see someone in the windows upstairs." He shrugged. "The usual haunted house stuff. We liked it because it brought in a few more ticket sales than just the average house on the National Register of Historic Places." Will's face took on a sour look. "Unfortunately, our resident spirit has chosen to become more aggressive."

Jordan had been fidgeting since Will had mentioned the Doyle Herman House, and blurted out, "Aggressive how?"

Will was starting to relax as he told his story, "He, um, I mean Doyle Herman, seems to be going out of his way to scare people. Our computers have been wiped twice. Normally, I wouldn't have looked for help, but a quick internet search showed me that you just opened shop. This morning, I tried to open the house and the door slammed on me. I haven't been able to get in."

"He's locked the place down," Jordan repeated. "Something has him agitated." He frowned as he tried to piece his thoughts together. "Spirits normally don't change how they behave. Such a change is usually the result of something big, such as the demolition of a building, the disruption of it's resting place, or something...bigger."

"We know the problem," Cynthia said, "let's do something about it."

Simon nodded. "Whatever caused the ghost to change his normal operating procedure doesn't matter. What matters is that someone is giving us our first case."

"First?" Will blanched.

"Nothing to worry about," Cynthia replied as she threw a glare at Simon. "We're trained professionals."

Twenty minutes later, the newly anointed Ghostbusters were dressed in the standard issue beige coveralls with their last names embroidered on their chests. All except Simon, who hadn't been around when the names had been ordered. On their sleeves was the No Ghost symbol that had come to represent their chosen line of work.

It was long before they had pulled up to the Doyle Herman House in Simon's car. They were unloading the proton packs and traps from the trunk of the car when Cynthia asked, "We are all trained, right? I took the online certification last week, but what about you two?"

Jordan nodded, "I took it before I even approached you with the idea, and Simon took it last night."

Cynthia smirked. "But did either of you pass?"

"Very funny," Simon shot back. "Did you?"

"I always pass," Cynthia said dismissively. She noted that they all had their packs on and said, "Turn them on."

A flip of a switch on each pack brought a whine that sounded akin to the charging of a portable camera's flash.

"Let's go."

They started to walk toward the building, all of them very eager to try out the new equipment. As they climbed the steps to the door, there was a booming laugh and the door unlatched and swung open slowly.

"Told you he liked you," Jordan said with a smirk.

"Shut up," Cynthia said.  
They walked into the front lobby of the Doyle Herman House very slowly. It looked just as it had when Jordan and Cynthia had been there last time, only all of the lights were off. Plenty of light was streaming in from the windows, but otherwise, the place looked like it was closed.

"Alright, get your PKE Meters out." She pointed down the hall that led toward the auditorium. "I'll check out the auditorium," she pointed to Jordan, "Jordan, check out his study. That's where we saw him last time, he might still be there." Cynthia shifted her finger to Simon. "Get your PKE Meter out and start checking this lobby. "When you two have cleared your area, meet me outside of the auditorium. We'll sweep the halls together from that point on." She looked them both in the eyes. "Got that?"

Simon paused, "Why are you in charge?"

Cynthia frowned and pointed at Jordan. "He and I are part owners. You're the super smart employee."

"Plus," Jordan added, "she was a soldier for ten years and this is a...strategic situation."

"That alright with you?" Cynthia said sharply.

Simon nodded, "Completely. Just checking." He pulled his PKE Meter from his belt and began scanning the lobby.

As Jordan went of the stairs, Cynthia made her way down the hall and toward the auditorium. She was only just outside the closed double doors when her PKE Meter began to screech in alarm. He was inside in a big way.

She opened the doors only a bit and peered in.

Sitting down in the first row was Doyle Herman with his back to her. He seemed to be enjoying some sort of show on the stage, but it wasn't a show that was taking place in the here and now. He was remembering some play or musical number he had enjoyed in life.

Doyle Herman let out a hearty laugh that made Cynthia jump, but she kept walking forward, propping open the door so that the guys would be able to come in without spooking the spook.

Grabbing her walkie-talkie from her belt, she said into it. "Auditorium. He's here."

The sound of her voice made Doyle Herman stop his enjoyment of the imaginary show and turn to face her.

"The lovely woman from the other day," he said quietly. "Welcome to my home."

Suddenly, he swelled to twice his size and lifted off of the floor almost ten feet. His face contorted into a painful looking grimace that stretched his mouth to inhuman proportions before he dove at Cynthia.

She was already pulling her neutrino wand when he lunged at her. Her first stream went wide and missed the ghost, but it veered him off course and away from her.

As Doyle looped to take another dive at her, he went lower and scooped up a chair, tearing it from it's bolted position on the floor, and threw it at her. "I can play too, my dear."

She leapt to the side and crashed among the auditorium seats. When she sat up, Doyle was coming right at her. From her prone position wedged between the seats, she couldn't bring up her gun in time.

From somewhere behind her, another stream streaked forward and hit Doyle in the face. He reeled back but the stream stayed on him, the energy wrapping around him as he struggled to race away.

Standing up, Cynthia saw that Simon was being dragged down the aisle and toward the stage as Doyle tried to flee the capture stream.

Cynthia stepped only half into the aisle and wedge her one foot against the nearest seat back. Leaning away, she let loose with her own stream again and was rewarded as the blast joined Simon's in wrangling the spirit.

Simon's movement slowed and Cynthia kept pressing her weight against the tugging creature.

"He's a fighter," she yelled over the sound of their streams. "Watch out."

No sooner has she said that, when Doyle Herman stopped struggling, reached out, and grabbed Simon's stream.

"That wasn't on the test," Simon shouted.

With a quick jerk, Simon was sailing across the auditorium and toward the stage. He had the sense to cut his stream and landed face down. Cynthia could hear his loud grunt as he landed.

Jordan was quickly standing in the aisle directly next to Cynthia, preparing to throw his own stream.

Nodding to the next aisle, Cynthia said, "Spread out."

Jordan ran to the next aisle and pressed the button on his neutrino wand.

With a loud hiss, his coolant rods in his proton pack released and then retracted themselves.

"It's the red button," Cynthia shouted to him.

"Oh," was all Jordan said before finding the correct switch and throwing his stream at Doyle Herman's ghost.

Jordan copied Cynthia's approach and had propped himself against one of the seats next to the aisle that he was staging his attack from. Doyle tried to the tug at both of them, but it only yanked them around in their spots.

"Simon," Jordan hollered toward the stage. "Get the trap."

Simon was still standing up, obviously a little winded from the Doyle's toss. He pulled his trap and hopped down from the stage before rolling out in the general direction of the ghost. Then he brought his own neutrino wand back up to join the others.

Together, the three Ghostbusters shifted their hold on Doyle so that he was over the trap. When he was as close as they figured they could get him, Cynthia shouted, "Now, Simon."

Simon stomped down on the plunger and the doors to the black and yellow striped trap flew open. A bright white light shot out of the trap and enveloped the spirit of Doyle Herman. Together the Ghostbusters held their streams on him as the trap pulled him in.

"This battle is yours, but your hold on me will only be a brief respite before I am called upon again." Doyle wasn't struggling, but he was shouting these last words as he grew closer to the prison of the trap. "Erra has called and the world will tremble before his might. Erra is upon us."

"Release," Cynthia shouted, and all three Ghostbusters turned off their streams while Simon let his foot off of the plunger.

Doyle Herman was pulled into the trap and the doors shut. Smoke and the little blinking light on the box was the only indication that anything was in the trap.

"Well," Jordan said with a grin from ear to ear, "that wasn't so hard, was it?"

Back at the Ghostbusters Des Moines office, Cynthia was pouring a flask into paper cups.

"You realize that it's only nine in the morning, right?" Jordan said.

Simon scooped up his cup, downed it in one gulp and handed it back to Cynthia. To answer Jordan's question, Cynthia raised an eyebrow and poured Simon another.

"Who's Erra?" Simon asked after his second cup had been emptied.

Jordan had just finished his first when he answered, "Probably something really big and scary with claws or something." He shrugged. "I have no idea, but I'll start scouring the web and the Spengler guide and see if I can find anything."

Cynthia looked at Jordan and asked, "I thought you knew these machines, how did you miss the trigger?"

Jordan's cheeks turned a little red and it wasn't from the shot. "Design flaw, obviously. The temperature release button shouldn't be that close to the trigger."

Simon smiled and winked at Cynthia, "I'll take a look at that."

Cynthia was pouring hers and Jordan's second drinks and Simon's third when the door chimed and a younger looking red-headed woman walked in.

She had an almost sing-song voice that was only marred by the fear that it held.

"Are you the Ghostbsuters?"

Cynthia stepped forward. "Yes, who are you and how can we help?"

She gulped, trying to suppress a sob. "My name," she gulped again, "is Regina Hulner. I witness a cult, at least I think it was a cult, open a tunnel to...somewhere. A lot of...ghosts flew out of it." She rubbed her eyes and a look of steel determination peaked out from behind the tired and sad look she was giving them. "My brother was possessed by one of them and disappeared."

Cynthia turned to Jordan to let him handle this. She still wasn't nearly as knowledgeable as to how these kinds of cases should be approached yet.  
Jordan stepped forward and placed a hand on their guest's shoulder. He offered her his cup, she sniffed it before drinking it quickly.

"Do you know the name of the spirit that took him? This could help us narrow down potential locations that he could be at, as well as how to properly exercise him."

Regina Hulner nodded, "It said that it's name was Erra."

Jordan's head snapped back to look at his partners. They both looked at him and all three of them wondered what they had just gotten themselves into.


	2. Episode 2: Spike in the Readings

Episode 2: A Spike in the Readings

"It was a gathering of men," Regina Hulner was drinking from a glass of water that Simon had brought her. She emptied the cup and handed it back to him. "They were robed and standing around a bonfire."

Despite himself, Jordan's eyes lit up. "A cult ceremony," he said quietly. "Where was it?"

Regina's eyes were red as she looked at Jordan with confusion over his excitement. She looked over to Cynthia as she answered. "Near Ames, I can show you."

Cynthia frowned, "We'll get to that. Tell us more about this ritual."

Regina recounted the events that had taken her brother from her. She explained how Blake had dragged her to the ceremony and then her introduction to the Chairman before explaining, through quiet sobs, the ritual that led to the release of Erra and the possession of her brother.

"Hold on," Cynthia interrupted. "The orbs shot out of your brother?"

Regina nodded, "And into everything and everyone."

"How did you avoid them?" Simon asked.

"I think," Regina answered, "that Blake was able to wrestle enough control away from Erra to protect me. He told me to run."

Jordan's excitement had disappeared somewhere in the middle of Regina's story, and his face had a worried expression across it.

"What's wrong?" Cynthia pressed her friend.

"They were spirits and ghosts." Jordan waved a hand at Regina, "Her brother started as a portal to the spirit world. The ritual needed to create a," he struggled as he looked for the word, "doorway to let Erra come here, but whatever plane of existence he came from was so far away that others that were much closer came out first." Jordan shrugged, and it was a much heavy gesture. "All of those spirits went somewhere."

Regina nodded, "I think that each of the cultists was hit by one, but a lot of them went into the sky, the ground, and everywhere."

Jordan shook his head, "Those were just the ghosts that you saw."

"Did you count how many other people were there?" Cynthia ignored Jordan's doom-and-gloom.

Regina bowed her head as she tried to remember. When she lifted it back up, she shook her head. "At least a dozen, but I can't be sure."

"What about this 'Chairman'?" Cynthia continued, "Did he seem pleased? Was this something he actually wanted to happen?"

There was no hesitation this time as Regina nodded quickly. "This was all part of his plan."

Cynthia sighed and turned away from Regina and addressed her fellow Ghostbusters. "It's an invasion."

Jordan nodded but Simon was confused, "Were we listening to different stories? How is this an invasion?"

Cynthia explained, "There are at least a dozen ghosts out there that look like people. They are among us and they are planning something."

"Possession…" Jordan mumbled.

"Not only are there at least a dozen well-disguised ghosts out there, but there's also one that I can assume is very powerful and we know nothing about," Cynthia grabbed her flask and took a deep sip.

"That's not true," Regina cut in. "I've had a few days to do my research and I didn't just look up you guys." While her eyes were still red, the tears were replaced with a new look. She wanted to act. "Erra is the Akkadian god of Mayhem and Pestilence."

"On it," Jordan spun around and plopped down at the nearest desk. He began clacking away at the computer.

"A god?" Simon asked. "Can we fight gods?"

Cynthia nodded, "In the eighties, the New York team took on a god named Gozer." Jordan's head perked up and he looked at Cynthia with surprise. "I'm not completely oblivious, thank you."

"So," Simon continued, "we can fight gods?"

"Yes and no," Jordan answered. The only reason the original New York team beat Gozer was because they were able to push him back through his doorway and slam the door on him. They didn't beat him like we did Doyle Herman. So, yes, we can fight gods, but no, we can't necessarily defeat them."

It was Cynthia's turn to be curious. "Can't we push Erra back through his doorway, too?"

Simon shook his head, "I doubt it. His doorway was…" he stopped himself when he realized what he was about to say. He turned toward Regina, "Sorry."

Regina was done crying and shook her head. "Don't be. I think you're right. My brother was the door way, but so was the ritual. The time to push Erra back to his home was that night in the corn field."

"Got anything?" Cynthia asked Jordan as a distraction from the lack of solid answers they were getting.

"Sure," Jordan answered. "If by 'anything' you mean a complete lack of hope, than yes, I have a lot."

"And that means?" Cynthia said.

"Erra's bad juju. Back in Babylon he came down to Earth to destroy mankind. He used plagues and his seven sons to bring destruction on everyone. He loves periods of political confusion-"

"Like an election year?" Simon interrupted.

Jordan nodded, but kept talking, "-and he's such a badass that Marduk gave up his seat to Erra out of respect."

"Marduk?" Cynthia asked.

"The ruling god of Babylon," Jordan supplied.

Simon nodded and asked, "Well, we're all still here, so he didn't succeed in that whole 'destroy mankind' mission. Any clues on how to beat him?"

Jordan shrugged, "Not really. We're all still here because he essentially got bored, packed up, and went home, but that was after he indiscriminately killed everyone in his path with plagues." Everyone in the room went very quiet and Jordan felt the need to add, "But it looks like there has been success in using pieces of the poem to protect against disease and help in exorcism."

"Exorcism?" Regina was suddenly excited. "The poem can save my brother?"

Jordan nodded, "I think so, and everyone else that was possessed during the ritual."

"That's important," Cynthia pointed at Jordan. "We can't bust a ghost while it's in a person."

"Yet," Simon added with a wink.

Cynthia liked having intel and began strategizing. "That corn field was filled with spirits, let's start there and see what we can find." Looking at Regina, she asked, "Can you tell us how to get there?"

"No," Regina answered, "I'll take you there, but you aren't leaving me behind."

"We're trained professionals, Ms. Hulner," Simon spoke up. "You wouldn't be safe."

Regina crossed her arms. "How many ghosts have you seen?"

Cynthia stepped forward, "That's not the point."

"Yes, it is." Regina was getting angry. "My brother protected me and I'm the only one who knows where it is. You need me."

Cynthia rubbed her brow and asked over her shoulder, "Is there any chance that the place is still haunted?"

Simon shrugged. "I doubt it. It sounds like they had places to go."

"Erra prefers political unrest," Jordan added. "It's more than likely that they're already headed to Des Moines."

"Fine," Cynthia sighed. "You can come with us, but we're not going to have a liability issue on our first day." She stepped closer to Regina. "You do as we say, when we say, or your part in will be immediately terminated."

Regina smiled, "Let's go."

They had to park Simon's car on the side of the road. They had decided to bring all of their equipment just in case, but opted to keep it in Simon's trunk. As the four of them marched into the corn, Simon and Jordan carried their PKE Meters while Cynthia decided to examine the situation with her eyes. Regina showed them where the bonfire was and where everyone had been standing, but it was completely unnecessary.

The entire site of the ritual had been scorched. The fire had exploded out of the ritual and encompassed an area twice the size that had been used in the ritual.

The PKE Meters were going off everywhere, but were giving the biggest reading near the center of the circle.

"This was the bonfire?" Simon asked.

Regina shook her head. "Almost," her eyes were filled with sadness. "That's actually where Blake had been positioned."

Simon looked at Jordan with a wide-eyed look before turning toward Cynthia, "Readings like this aren't even in the manual."

"Shit," was all she could say.

"Jordan was right, though," Simon added.

"How so?" Jordan asked.

"The signal gets stronger on the southern side of the field." He pointed north. "It's non-existent that way."

"So?" Regina said.

"Des Moines," Cynthia supplied. "They're heading to Des Moines." She waved her hand in the air. "We're done here. Let's get back home."

Regina was incensed. "Are you sure we're done?" She grabbed at Jordan's PKE Meter and he let her take it. She stared at the screen but didn't understand what she was looking at. "There has to be more here."

Cynthia stepped up to her and pressed the PKE Meter down, forcing Regina to look at her. "We'll find him, but we're not going to find him here. Right now he's in Des Moines and the longer that we are here, the more time Erra is going unchecked in your brother's body."

Regina nodded and, as one, the four of them left the area of the ritual and marched through the corn field toward the car.

When the four of them broke the edge of the corn field and could see Simon's car, they were surprised to see that a patrol car was parked on the same side of the road but facing Simon's car.

The police officer was standing on the edge of the road directly next to their car.

"Is there something we can help you with, officer?" Cynthia asked as they came up the embankment.

The officer looked very confused, "I honestly don't know." He waved his hand at his car. "I was driving by and it just stalled."

A shrill whine surprised everyone and drew their attention toward Regina. She was holding up the PKE Meter. It's antennae were extended and its screen was lit up.

"What's that mean?" She asked.

In response to her question, the patrol car suddenly revved its engine.

Jordan pointed at the car, "I think it means that."

"Simon," Cynthia was the only one who wasn't frozen. She smacked Simon in the chest. "Pop the trunk. We need the packs."

The officer stepped over to his car and reached in through the open window to grab at the keys. They heard him mumble something about them being stuck before the car door jerked open and propelled the officer past the embankment and into the corn field.

Cynthia grabbed Regina and shoved her into the backseat of Simon's car before joining her team at the trunk. They helped each other into their proton packs and left the trunk open as they came around. Cynthia brought up her neutrino wand and was about to flip the switch when Simon grabbed her arm.

"We probably shouldn't shoot at the car. It could blow it up."

Cynthia nodded. "I'm alright with that." Louder she said, "Light 'em up."

The moment she said it, the patrol car's wheels began spinning. As one, the Ghostbusters fired their proton packs.

Each of them missed. The car released its brake and slammed into the front of Simon's car, but didn't stop there as it turned toward them. Each of the team scattered, and only Cynthia stayed on her feet. Jordan was the closest to the patrol car as it suddenly released a dark smoke that billowed from the hood.

Jordan sniffed and shouted, "It smells like popcorn. The smoke is the-" He broke off in a coughing fit as the smoke covered Jordan.

Simon called out to Jordan as he was choked into unconsciousness. The cloud of smoke curled up into a billowing cloud before arcing over and into the hood of Simon's car. Regina screamed as the car lurched forward and toward Simon as he climbed back onto the road.

His car screeched as it cranked on its own e-brake and spun so that the trunk was facing Simon. He leapt back, avoiding the bumper as the car came within inches of hitting him.

His relief was too soon, as the possessed vehicle shifted into reverse and bumped him. The resulting bump tripped him forward and into the still-open trunk that then slammed down on him, locking him in.

Cynthia was still standing and firing, although she kept her shots wide. Whereas blowing up the patrol car wasn't a problem for her, blowing up the prospective client and her employee was probably a bad idea.

Directing it wasn't going to be enough, though. She couldn't capture the ghost while it was in the car and she had no idea how to get it out. Taking on the role of Matador, she tried to corral the car toward her. If she could get close enough, maybe she could get in. Cynthia wasn't sure if being inside the car would help, but she was running out of options.

The car took her bait and rushed at her with a squeal of tires. She dove out of the way just as it was about to slam into her, but her fortune was short lived. As the car went by her on her right side, Regina's door opened at the will of the possessing spirit and hit Cynthia with the full force of the speeding car.

Cynthia was unconscious before she hit the pavement. She skidded to the edge of the road and laid there on her pack.

When her door had opened, Regina hadn't hesitated and had opted for jumping out. She hit the pavement harder than she had expected to. Regina wheezed as the breath exploded out of her. She was terrified of being the car's next victim and forced herself to her feet as quickly as she could.

Regina scanned her surroundings and attempted to assess her situation. The three well-armed Ghostbusters were down.

She needed to either run away or find a weapon.

Running as quickly as she could, and trying to ignore the revving engine of the possessed car, Regina dove onto the unconscious form of Jordan and grabbed up his neutrino wand. Seeing what she was doing, the car stopped revving and released its brake. It was careening at her.

The wand was heavier than it looked, but she had no time to worry about that. Sitting on the pavement, she just started flipping switches on the wand until it fired a stream of energy. Once it was lit up, she aimed it at the car.

The stream cut through the roof of the car and then the windshield before Regina was able to bring it down and into the engine of the car. The car let out a loud clank and sputtered as metal broke off and shot up and out of the hood. It rolled to a stop only a few feet from her before sagging in the middle of the road.

The smoke billowed up from the car and the smell of burnt popcorn filled Regina's nostrils. She wasn't going to worry about turning the beam off and instead followed the cloud of malicious smoke as it climbed out of the car.

When the stream hit the smoke, the smoke seemed to coalesce in a skeletal shape. It was still smoke, but with more structure. There was definitely something in the smoke. Regina kept the stream on the ghost but didn't know what she was supposed to do next. She bounced as it tugged on her, but with the added weight of Jordan's unconscious form, Regina wasn't going anywhere.

A small metal box, painted yellow and black, rolled across the pavement and under the smoke spirit. Regina watched as the top of the box split open and a bright light exploded out of it.

"Don't look into the trap," Cynthia shouted.

Regina looked away and watched from the corner of her eye as the smoke spirit was pulled into the trap. Then the door shut.

Cynthia limped over to Regina and switched off the proton pack before slumping onto the pavement next to her.

"Good job," Cynthia wheezed.

Regina was still shaking as she said, "Thanks."

The officer had given them a ride back to their headquarters and called for a tow truck for Simon's car.

At the Ghostbusters: Des Moines headquarters Simon deposited the trap into the containment unit while the Ghostbusters discussed what they had learned from the corn field with Regina.

"The spirit had used the burning smoke from the cornfield to manifest itself," Jordan explained. "This means that any of the spirits that escaped without a body have probably found a way to manifest one."

"That makes them tougher," Cynthia said. "A ghost with a metal shell is a lot harder to trap than a free-floater."

Jordan nodded and turned toward Regina, "Are you sure there were about a dozen cultists?"

Regina nodded. "At least."

Jordan turned the computer monitor at the nearby desk to face them. On it was a Wikipedia article labeled Sibitti.

"Well, I'm beginning to think that at least seven of them are demigods," he said.

"What?" Simon said as he joined them. "Demigods? Where did you figure this out?"

Jordan waved at the screen. "The rest of the poem about Erra refers to his seven sons, the Sibitti. They are the ones that help and encourage him to create destruction."

"Is one of them a smoke monster?" Regina asked.

Jordan shook his head. "No. The seven are labeled as 'a furious south wind, a predator with an open mouth, a furious panther, a fearful serpent, a raging lion, a rising wave, and a harmful gale or storm'."

"Great," Cynthia rubbed her temples. "We have Erra, who is a complete god, and seven demigods to deal with. We couldn't handle a smoke spirit."

Simon slapped Regina on the shoulder, "She could."

Cynthia nodded and smiled, although her stress still shone through her pleasant expression. "That's true. Great job out there." Cynthia nodded at Jordan.

In response, he pulled off his PKE Meter. "This job is meant for at least four Ghostbusters for that specific reason. A team of four can be more strategic than a team of three. We've got the room and you have a knack for it. Interested in a job?"

Regina looked at the PKE Meter that Jordan was holding out for her to take. She didn't even hesitate as she grabbed it out of his hand.

"This is the first thing I've been able to do that helps me bring my brother back." She smiled and could feel happiness in her for the first time since that night that took Blake from her.

"I'm in."


	3. Episode 3: Hunger

Regina was hovering over the phone at Simon's desk. She'd been doing that since she came in that morning. It was only ten, but it had already gotten annoying.

"So," Jordan said while Simon cranked a crescent wrench on a large gray tank attached to a backpack, "the new girl is a little…"

"Excited," Simon finished for him. "She's more excited than any of us were at the Doyle Herman house."

Cynthia was in another cubicle, but could overhear their conversation. "She's got a lot more invested in this than we do."

Jordan nodded toward the backpack with tanks attached. "Is this the thrower?"

Simon was about to answer when the desk phone rang.

Before the first ring could finish, Regina had picked it up.

"Ghostbusters: Des Moines! How can we help you?"

Her eyes lit up even more than when the phone rang. "Sir, I'm going to put you on speaker so the rest of the team can hear, is that alright?"

Regina nodded at an unheard answer and hit a button on the phone.

"Mr. le Croix, can you please start from the beginning?"

"Sure," the voice sounded shy yet strong. "My name is Mike le Croix, and I'm Head Minister at Plymouth Church downtown." He took a deep breath. "Right now, I'm at Mercy Hospital in the coma ward. There are currently six people here who are unconscious and the doctors don't know what's wrong with them."

"And you think that we can help?" Cynthia asked, leaning over the phone.

Mike le Croix took his time answering. "The church isn't in a place to comment on the work you do, but I'm not an idiot. I've seen the history of the Ghostbusters franchise and I know what some of these charts are saying. There's no mental activity. These bodies are vacant and have all arrived in the last 24 hours. If it isn't medical, it's spiritual, and perhaps you're the answer to our prayers."

A half an hour later, the Ghostbusters were getting out of their vehicles. Cynthia had given Jordan permission to paint her truck white and install the equipment mountings and dimensionometer. Either way, the truck could only hold a cramped three, so Simon's car was parked directly next to Cynthia's truck.

Jordan and Simon were both wearing brown canvas "Backpacks of Holding" from their favorite online geek store. Each backpack was loaded with a slew of different meters and tools for measuring different factors that could help determine the presence of ghosts.

Aside from the two backpacks, the team was out of uniform and wearing their day to day outfits.

Once they reached the coma ward, Mike le Ward recognized them and greeted them at the door.

"We're fortunate that they are the only patients here today." Mike waved in the direction of the six occupied beds.

Jordan pulled off his backpack and took out two PKE Meters. Handing one to Simon, he said, "Let's do our best Patch Adams and save some folks."

They walked off and started scanning the bodies, doing their best to not annoy any of the family members that were waiting for their loved ones to wake up.

"If something is wrong with any of them," Cynthia asked, "what might they have in common?"

Mike nodded, "I actually questioned the families before I called you, and each of these cases happened at different times at the Blank Park Zoo."

"Has anyone called the police?" Regina asked, crossing her arms.

"The hospital did when I told them the zoo connection," Mike answered and pointed at the nearest bed. "She was the officer who went to check it out." He shrugged. "The Zoo closed its doors, but these people haven't gotten better. I'm certain that the answer is in your hands."

Cynthia and Regina turned as Jordan and Simon came back over.

"It's less Patch Adams," Jordan was saying, "and more Insidious."

"What does that mean?" Cynthia asked.

Simon answered, "Their bodies are empty."

"Empty?" Regina echoed.

"They have no ambient PKE energy," Simon explained. "Ghosts are amplified, or compacted amounts of Psycho-Kinetic Energy, but PKE doesn't just show up out of nowhere. The living have PKE, it's just encased in a… meat shell."

Jordan nodded, "A kind of gooey-center."

Everyone, including Mike Le Croix, frowned at Jordan.

"Sorry."

Cynthia pointed at the beds, "So, those people don't have any PKE?"

"Not a drop," Simon held up the PKE meter as if illustrating his point. "They have no spiritual energy."

Regina's eyes were wide with fear. "Something took their souls."

Jordan nodded and said, "That's not even the bad news. Without their souls, their bodies are shutting down." He pointed at the further bed, where a little girl was surrounded by her family. "The earliest victim won't survive another twenty-four hours."

They all took on somber expressions and fell silent.

Regina broke that silence.

"When you say that something was stealing their souls, do you think it's a ghost?"

"Definitely," Simon answered.

"Some sort of spiritual entity, anyway," Jordan added. "The energy it's absorbing would be added to its own reserves. The more souls that it eats, the harder it will be to fight."

"We're on the clock, and the Minister says this happened at the Zoo," Cynthia said. "Let's suit up and head that way."

Regina shook Mike's hand and said, "We're on this, and we'll do everything that we can to save these people."

"Thank you," he said. "Good luck."

They parked their vehicles at the Blank Park Zoo's administration building. It was behind some of the bigger barns, but easy enough to find. At the administration building, they met up with the park's Director of Operations, Bryan Nickel. Along the way, the Ghostbusters only detoured to get their jumpsuits from headquarters.

"While you're in the park, I will be your guide," he explained.

"This isn't a field trip," Cynthia was a little annoyed at Zoo management thinking that they needed to be watched. "We're here because something in your zoo is causing people to go comatose."

"Allegedly," Bryan countered. "Look, I appreciate what you folks do, but the Zoo owners have made it clear that I need to stay with you so that I can keep a running tally on any and all property damage."

Jordan could see that Cynthia was about to lose her cool and stepped in to diffuse the situation. "That'll be just fine, Mr. Nickel." He pulled out his PKE Meter and nodded to Simon who slid goggles down over his eyes. "Would you mind taking us to where you found the police officer?"

Bryan was happy to lead the way and walked them all out and into the park.

As they walked, Jordan was swinging the PKE Meter in wide arcs while Simon looked around with the goggles. Regina and Cynthia had their neutrino wands drawn and were waiting on one of the boys to give a signal.

Regina leaned over and tapped Simon on the arm, making him start. "What's with the goggles?"

Simon pointed toward Jordan. "The goggles are receiving data directly from the PKE Meter. That data is interpreted as a color overlay through the goggles. It's essentially letting me see everything's Psychokinetic aura." He tapped the side of the goggles. "It also has a built in range finder and can take pictures that save to a memory card for future examination."

"Wow," Regina was actually kind of excited. "What other toys do you guys have that I haven't even heard of yet?"

Simon shrugged, stopping to look at a large and fake ostrich egg half that was intended for people to sit in. "The coffee maker has a single-serve option."

Regina frowned and went back to walking in silence.

Bryan Nickel stopped walking. They were on the path between two major exhibits. "This is where she was found." He waved at a wall of netting. "Over there is the bird sanctuary, and over there," he turned the other direction and waved at low fences and a bright red barn, "is the petting zoo."

Jordan waved the PKE Meter toward the petting zoo and then toward the bird sanctuary. He only glanced at the readings before turning to Simon and raising his eyebrows.

"Petting zoo," Simon nodded at the barn. "Definitely."

They started toward the zoo with Cynthia taking the lead.

She turned to Bryan, "You should stay out here. Things get a little wild around us and while the animals' safety is important, so is yours. Hang out here while we go in."

Bryan's face twisted as he wrestled with the idea of disobeying his duties and putting himself in the way of danger. He settled on staying out of the danger, but it was with obvious reluctance.

As they swung the door open to the barn, Simon let out a nervous laugh.

"Yeah guys," his voice was quiet. "There's definitely something here."

"Regina, Simon, get your guns warmed up," Cynthia said. "Jordan, keep the meter up until Simon makes visual contact. Then get a trap ready."

Everyone nodded and Regina and Simon hit the power switches on their neutrino wands.

As they entered the barn, all of the stables were wide open. It was probably normal since it was a petting zoo, but what wasn't normal was the lack of any animals in the stables.

They started checking each of the stables until Regina let out a grunt of annoyance.

"What is it?" Cynthia asked her.

"I stepped in…some sort of snot," she lifted her boot to show it to the group. The rest of the team came over to look and the same snot on Regina's shoe was all over the interior of the stable she had been inspecting.

Jordan grew excited as he ran his PKE Meter over it.

"That's not snot, it's psychokinetically charged slime or ectoplasm." As everyone stared at him without understanding anything he said, Jordan sighed, and added, "Trace remains of a powerful spiritual energy."

Regina and Cynthia both blurted at the same time, "What?"

Simon picked up the explanation from Jordan, "Strong ghosts with strong emotions leave behind magic snot. The magic snot means that the thing we're hunting was here."

"Was or is?" Cynthia asked quietly.

They all looked toward the far end of the barn where they could suddenly hear quiet whimpering.

As one unit, they moved toward the sound. Within a few steps, they could see several different types of fluffy and gentle animals all huddled in the furthest corner. There were llamas, alpacas, several fawns, and a few sheep all shuddering and trying to get as far away from a goat sitting only a few feet away from them.

Simon pulled the goggles back over his eyes and gave a thumbs up. "That goat is possessed by…" he rotated a lens, "a Class 7."

Regina's eyes went wide, "What's a Class 7?"

Cynthia looked at Jordan's PKE Meter to confirm what Simon was saying.

"Class 7's are bigger than anything we've fought before."

"It's just a goat, guys," Regina lowered her neutrino wand and began slowly stepping toward the goat.

Jordan gestured towards the terrified animals, "A goat that's got all of their 'spidey-senses' tingling." He shrugged his shoulders as he added, "So, arguably not 'just a goat'."

Regina stretched out her hand as she got closer.

Simon nudged Cynthia. "Are you going to do something about this?"

Cynthia shrugged, "It's her hand, and we need to lure this thing out."

Simon smiled and lifted his goggles, "Live bait? I like it."

Regina was only about a foot from the goat when it suddenly turned and was staring directly at her. The quick movement made Regina fall back, landing on her butt. As soon as the goat had noticed her, the ground began to shudder.

The goat looked at each of the Ghostbusters in turn. When it had completed its inspection, Its limbs began to stretch with loud pops and crunches.

As it grew, the goat's small horns blackened and began to expand. As its limbs grew longer the skin tore leaving long patches of exposed muscle and bone. Its teeth tripled in length.

The goat-thing had grown to about five feet tall and ridiculously proportioned when it leapt back on its hind legs and chose a bipedal stance. As its transformation seemed to complete, the goat-thing let out a roar.

"Not a goat," Regina screamed.

Cynthia shouted, "Hit it!"

Simon and Cynthia fired their proton streams directly into the chest of the goat-thing, while Jordan put away his PKE Meter and worked at getting the trap ready.

The proton streams started wrapping around the goat-thing, but they'd lose their grasp almost immediately. Switching tactics, both Ghostbusters quit trying to wrangle the ghost and instead decided to do some damage to it.

As the blasts struck the goat-thing an orb of blue light shot out of its body and floated up to and through the roof of the barn.

Jordan asked, "What was that?"

"Nevermind," Cynthia shouted. "Drop the trap and throw a stream. We need help."

Jordan did exactly that while Regina awoke from her shock and threw her own stream while still on the ground. As the streams hitting the goat-thing doubled, more of the colored orbs began to break off of it.

As if screaming at the orbs, the goat-thing lifted its head and let out another roar. As its mouth stretched wider than it looked capable of, the orbs that hadn't floated through the roof reversed direction and slammed into the goat-thing's body.

Simon slid the goggles back into place and shouted above their streams, "Those balls of light are condensed spiritual energy."

Cynthia nodded, "He's losing them as we hit him." She shifted to yell to Jordan. "What is this?"

When the last of the orbs that they could see had rejoined the goat-thing, it twisted and shot through the roof. Where it hit a thick layer of slime coated the ceiling.

"I have a theory, but nothing solid."

Jordan helped Regina to her feet, and she added, "I wouldn't be surprised if that goat wasn't from the zoo, but maybe some farm near where Erra was being summoned."

"You think?" Jordan replied with a wink.

They all ran outside just in time to see the monstrous goat-thing holding Bryan Nickel by the collar of his shirt. It opened its mouth and leaned closer to Bryan. Summoned by the goat-thing's presence, an orb of soft blue light escaped from Bryan's mouth and into the monster's.

"He got the zoo-guy!" Regina screamed.

Jordan nodded, "That's all I needed to see. It's a soul-eater."

"I'm assuming," Cynthia asked, "that the title is entirely self-explanatory." When Jordan answered with a slow nod, she added, "Makes sense. Plan?"

"Soul-eaters are all over the place in the lore. They get stronger by stealing the spirits of the living."

"He's too strong to wrangle into a trap," Cynthia said.

"Condensed blasts of accelerated protons should help to disperse the collected spiritual energy," Simon said.

"What?" Regina asked.

Cynthia had managed to keep up and answered Regina with a command to the whole team. "He said to switch to Boson Darts and give him all you've got. When he's weak enough, hit him with the trap."

"What's a Boson Dart?" Regina asked.

Jordan stepped forward and hit a switch on the side of Regina's neutrino wand. The icon on the switch was a red explosion emoji.

"Think of it like the shotgun setting on your proton pack. All of that proton stream energy condensed into one tight burst."

Regina lifted her neutrino wand, took aim, and fired.

The wand emitted a ball of red and yellow energy that crackled with blue lightning. The recoil from the burst caused Regina to drop her neutrino wand in surprise. She scooped it back up and watched as the blast hit the Soul-Eater. He rocked back and was visibly upset by the attack. As he reeled in pain, three more orbs shot off of its body and into the sky.

"Oh yeah," Regina said with a huge smile. "I like this."

The team opened up on the Soul-Eater, hitting it with everything they had. Slow bursts from the Boson Darts were staggered between each of the Ghostbusters, giving their packs time to cool off while never letting up on the Soul-Eater.

As they fired, more and more orbs shot off of the monster. One of those orbs arced up and then back down before slamming into the still form of the Director of Operations.

Bryan Nickel gave a gasp and leapt to his feet. Seeing the Soul-Eater only feet from him, he half-ran and half-tripped toward the barn for protection.

"See that?" Jordan asked. "The souls are returning to their bodies."

"No shit, Sherlock," was Cynthia's reply. "Get the trap ready."

The Soul-Eater suddenly swooped toward them, specifically at Simon, who only barely managed to dive out of the way in time. The Soul-Eater slammed into the ground and disappeared, leaving another puddle of snot.

Cynthia raised her hand to indicate to the team that they needed to stop firing.

Silence followed, there was no indication of where the ghost had gone.

With a blast of dirt and rocks, the goat-shaped Soul-Eater came out of the ground behind Regina and batted her away and into Jordan. Simon and Cynthia hit it with more Boson Darts as it launched itself at Cynthia.

With its clawed hoof-hand things it grabbed Cynthia by the straps of her pack and lifted her straight into the air. It pulled her close, slime and drool dripped from its maw as it leaned toward Cynthia to suck out her soul.

From deep inside herself, Cynthia could feel everything that made up who she was beginning to detach itself from her.

Through gritted teeth, Cynthia grunted, "I don't think so." The barrel of her neutrino wand had wedged itself into the furry side of the monster. With another grunt, she pulled the trigger and released a Boson Dart directly into the Soul-Eater.

The explosive force blew Cynthia and the Soul-Eater away from each other. Hitting the ground, she checked herself over and was pleased to see that aside from her aching back from hitting the ground, she was fine.

The other Ghostbusters had already gathered and opened fire on the downed Soul-Eater.

After a flurry of orbs released from the creature, the ghost removed itself from the goat and sailed into the air. The goat reverted back to its normal form and ran, bleating, back to the barn.

Without the possessed body of the goat, the Soul-Eater looked much as it had before. It was still lanky and bipedal with patches of raw flesh visible, but instead of a goat's face, it had a mouth that took over the entirety of the front half of its head. There was no eyes or nose. Only a gaping maw filled with millions of tiny teeth.

"Streams!" Cynthia shouted.

The Ghostbusters opened up with their proton streams and had no trouble wrangling the Soul-Eater this time.

A nod from Cynthia and Jordan threw the trap out. He stomped on the plunger and the Soul-Eater was consumed by the bright light within the mechanical box.

Regina let out a heavy sigh. "Damn, these fights aren't easy."

"The spiritual energy in the areas surrounding Des Moines has been steadily increasing. Ghosts that were normally Class 3 animators are gaining the power to evolve to much higher classes." Jordan's explanation left Regina worried.

Cynthia said, "I don't think things are going to get better until we get Erra."

Simon's cell phone began ringing. He put it to his head and said, "That's great, I'll tell the team. Thanks." He put his phone away and was smiling as he said to the Ghostbusters, "That was Mike le Croix. He said that everyone just woke up."

After they found and thanked Bryan, the Ghostbusters headed back to the office. As they came in, Regina waved at the jar that Simon was holding. "I can't believe that you collected some of that snot."

"It's self-replicating under the proper circumstances," he answered. "If we can change the charge on it, it'll give us a reason to use this." He waved an opened crate by his desk. Inside was three large tanks all strapped to a backpack. There was a large, funnel-shaped canon attached to the tanks.

"What's that?" Regina asked.

"Another weapon we might need to save your brother."


	4. Episode 4: Slimed! Part 1

Regina was wearing a grey hoodie that had the "No Ghosts" logo over the left side of her chest. With an almost obsessive ferocity, she was regularly checking her watch as she walked east on Locust Avenue in Downtown Des Moines.

"Oh," Simon had said, "almost like it's undercover?"

Regina shrugged. "Undercover, or convenience, but can you do it?"

Simon tilted his head to the side as he ran through the possibilities. "Yeah, I could do it, but it wouldn't have a lot of the functionality of the original P.K.E. Meters."

"Such as?"

"It wouldn't work with the goggles and you wouldn't have the directional functionality." He took off his glasses and started cleaning them. "The type of P.K.E. signature wouldn't be measured either. You also wouldn't be able to record the data."

"Yeah, but it would still measure P.K.E. wherever I'm standing?"

Simon nodded. "That's all it would do."

That was a week ago, and today was the third day that Regina had been using her new phone case. It attached to the back of her phone as a flat black case except for the half of an orb that projected off of the back over where the camera was. The orb was clear, showing the internal antenna and LED's wrapped and against the case. The case ran off of the battery from the phone and used the phone's Near Field Communication technology to report to the phone numerical data on the nearby P.K.E. readings.

It reported all of those readings to a simple application that Simon made. The application also tied to Google Maps, putting a pin into any readings that were abnormal.

The final half of the smaller P.K.E. was entirely Regina's doing. The watch she was wearing was a Pebble Smartwatch. Notifications that Regina wanted would be reported to the watch over Bluetooth. She had asked Simon to add a notification feature to his P.K.E. application. When the numerical P.K.E. data rises above whatever level Regina sets it at, her watch gives her notification.

All Regina has to do is walk around with her phone case turned on. The application will send any P.K.E. spikes as an alert to her watch. No more carrying around the bulky P.K.E. meter unless she needed it. Instead, Regina could walk around all of Des Moines with her hands in her pockets just waiting for it to vibrate that she had found something.

She could locate the Seven Sons of Sibitti. She could locate Erra.

Maybe she could even find her brother.

It was the entire reason that she was on the streets of Des Moines with her newly designed, and highly mobile, P.K.E. meter.

When Locust ended, directly in front of the Capital building, Regina turned north toward Grand. Once she crossed the block she paused in front of the Wallace Building to look at the Capital building. It was beautiful. A large golden dome on top of …

 _Bzzt!_

Regina pulled her hands out of her pockets and took a look at her watch.

She turned around to face the golden-mirrored windows that covered the southern side of the Wallace Building. She began walking toward it.

Beneath the large windows was a set of doors. Regina walked in and another vibration came to the watch. She looked at the notification and read it.

PKE Reading: 151 Units.

She walked to the right toward a set of doors that were opened onto a large auditorium and the watch vibrated again.

PKE Reading: 110 Units.

The number had gone down and that meant that she was getting further away.

She turned around and walked to the set of doors that would have been on her left as she had entered. Another vibration let her know that she was going the right direction.

As she went through those doors, she found a long lobby with a view of the capital building to her left and on her right were historical moments and facts in Iowa agriculture, including an antique plow and a biofuel display showing an older gas pump filled with corn. The lobby was huge, but there was almost no one in it aside from two women sitting and talking on some of the chairs that were lined up along the windows.

It only took one more vibration before Regina pulled out her phone and looked at it directly. Walking forward, she saw that she was walking toward the Department of Agriculture. Regina cast another glance at her phone and watched the numbers on the P.K.E. app climb higher as she continued toward the office. She almost crashed right into several state employees as they stared at their own phones.

"Oh," said the shorter woman. "Sorry," she gestured toward Regina's phone. "Pokemon Go? Are you Team Valor?"

"Huh?" Regina asked, genuinely confused. "What?"

The man she was with wore a grey flat cap and smiled pleasantly at both women. "My wife is talking about Pokemon Go. It looked like you were playing," he held up his phone. "Like us."

"Oh, no," Regina showed the Ghostbusters symbol on the shoulder of her hoodie. "I'm a Ghostbusters, hunting ghosts." She held up her own phone as if the P.K.E. meter application explained everything. "Have you seen anything strange or unusual?"

"You mean like a woman hunting ghosts?" the man in the flat cap replied with a wry smile. "No, nothing unusual. Good luck in your hunt." His wife and he started off toward the glass doors.

Regina called over her shoulder. "Good luck with yours," and continued following the strange readings she was getting.

As she came to the front of the Department of Agriculture office, a group of older gentlemen came out and started to walk past her.

The meter let out a shrill cry that made Regina and the men jump.

"Can we help you miss?" The man nearest her asked. He was about six inches taller than her and had a bald head and a goatee that was obviously colored.

He also sent the P.K.E. meter app into fits.

As it continued to beep loudly, he glanced down at the phone and then at Regina's hoodie.

Regina wasn't certain about much, but she was sure that this man was related to the Erra incident.

Anger flashed across her eyes as she demanded, "Where's my brother?"

"A Ghostbuster? Welcome to the Wallace building, but," he looked over his shoulder at the parking lot and the cars out there, "aren't you supposed to be outside?"

As if his words had caused it, a car alarm began sounding in time with the P.K.E. meter.

His small smile was only overshadowed by the flash of orange spectral energy behind his eyes.

Regina had no time to pursue her line of questioning and turned and ran back out of the Wallace Building and out to the parking lot.

The couple that had been playing Pokemon Go were running from the only car in the small, street-facing, parking lot. Lights flashed inside of it in an eerie yellow and blue glow that shifted erratically.

As Regina made it to the car, the glowing burst out of the windows, shattering them in the process.

Standing directly in front of Regina were two spectral animations from the couple's came.

Regina wasn't sure what the blue one, shaped like a snake with a silver head wreathed in fins, was, but the yellow one was on merchandise and artwork across the world.

Pikachu let out a growl and lunged for Regina.

She suddenly realized that running toward the ghosts had been a horrible idea. Without a proton pack or a trap, there was literally nothing that she could do except run.

Well, and she dialed her phone.

"Get to the Wallace Building! Downtown! Bring an extra pack!" Since no one answered, Regina figured that the team could play the office voicemail at her funeral.

As Regina ran back toward the Wallace Building's big glass doors, she saw that the group of men, including the one with the orange eyes, were standing outside.

"Oh no," the possessed man shouted. "They are attacking us!" He raised his arms and the windows, every single window in the Wallace Building, exploded outward, showering glass all over as the men around him dove to the ground.

Regina did the same, dropping to be avoid the glass and the lightning and fire attacks coming from the Pokemon-disguised ghosts.

When she got back up, all of the older men were gone. Most likely they had dove back into the building and took their possessed friend with them. Regina turned away from the building to see how close the Pokemon were and regretted it almost immediately.

Pikachu was only a few feet from her and was charging his energy for his next attack. The blue snake-thing was slithering toward her with its mouth wide open to bite.

A proton stream slammed into the snake-thing, holding it in place as a trap slid on its side directly next to Pikachu.

"Pikachu! I choose you!" Jordan shouted. The trap doors opened and Regina looked away as Pikachu was sucked inside.

Once the yellow bastard had been sucked up. Jordan and Cynthia collected the snake-thing in a similar manner.

A relieved Regina walked over to her teammates. "How did you guys get here so quickly?"

Jordan shrugged and pretended to flip his hair back. "You know, we were, like, in the neighborhood."

Cynthia rolled her eyes. "He's an idiot, but kind of right." She nodded at Regina's watch. "The app sends up an alert to each of our phones if it picks up a signal over 100 units." She waved at the car with the shattered windows. "How did they manifest?"

Regina shook her head. "I was following that P.K.E. signal, and it brought me here," she waved frantically at the Wallace Building. "It led me to a living and breathing man, except his eyes glowed, and I think he made these things appear." She took a breath and then added, "What the hell is going on?"

Cynthia gestured at the Wallace Building. "Someone in there made these things?" She looked at Jordan whose eyes were wide. "Can people do that?"

He shook his head in reply, "Maybe, but I doubt that's what this is." He grinned, "I think we just found our first possessing entity."

"Like pea-soup and spinning heads?" Regina asked. She couldn't help but feel a little excited by the prospect.

"Exactly," Jordan said. "I don't think this is just any possessor, though."

Cynthia shook her head. "It's definitely one of the Seven."

"Wait," Regina was confused. "Why?"

Cynthia explained, "The possessing entity is inside a government employee and wanted you," she pinched the logo on Regina's hoodie, "a Ghostbuster, to be distracted. He knows who you are and he is positioning himself in a place of power." She holstered her neutrino wand. "Also, while he could be some other," Cynthia looked at Jordan with uncertainty as she almost confidently continued, "possessing entity, he revealed himself to you in a very showy fashion. That kind of behavior implies he hasn't been in that body long."

Jordan nodded. "My thoughts exactly."

Regina was incredibly happy. She was looking for anything that would lead her to her brother, and one of the Seven, companions to Erra, would be exactly that.

Success!

"What are you waiting for?" Regina grabbed Cynthia's arm. "Go get him."

"We can't," Cynthia yanked her arm back. "We can't just trap him. We need to interrogate him if we want more information on the Seven and Erra. As far as I know, none of our equipment can do that."

"Besides," Jordan added, "this equipment would kill a normal person, and our possessor is wearing a living person."

"Oh," Regina's disappointment was evident, "I hadn't thought of that." She was frustrated. "We finally have a clue and we can't do anything to retrieve it."

"That's not true," Jordan answered. "We can do things, I just don't know what. Simon will have an idea. We still haven't opened all of the equipment crates." He lifted the traps that still smoked at the ends of their cables. "Let's get these guys in the containment unit and see what Simon has to say."

Back at the Ghostbusters: Des Moines Headquarters, Jordan explained the situation to Simon as Simon dug through crates and packing peanuts with a fervor.

Simon turned and tossed Regina a small, handheld canister.

"First things first, if you're going to hunt down possessors without a proton pack, carry that with you."

Regina looked it over. "What is it?"

"Think of it like Ghost Mace," He handed out identical canisters to Cynthia and Jordan. "One shot of that will make any ghost think twice about coming at you."

"What's in it?" Cynthia looked at her canister. It had a no label, only a black and yellow caution stripe across it.

"That's the next thing." Simon dug lifted up another pack.

The pack was made up of three tanks. The outer tanks were smaller and silver while the tank in the middle was a military green with more black and yellow caution stickers across them. Where the neutrino wand would be on the proton pack was instead a high-tech looking emitter hose with a lever on top.

"Large concentrations of emotions create slime," Simon explained. "That's all ghosts really are, on a scientific level. They are just emotions that have found a way to become visible. The proud owner of a historic home becomes angry that his house is now used for tours. All of that negative emotion combines with other people's emotions and then slime starts to coalesce. Then the spirit uses that slime to build a form, or to animate furniture." Simon patted the pack with the tanks. "That slime doesn't have to be negatively charged."

"What happens when positive and negative slimes meet?" Regina asked.

"They cancel each other out." He nodded toward the 'Ghost Mace.' "The Ghost Mace and this big pack are filled with regenerating positive slime. Hit a ghost with either of these and it'll at least send it running."

Jordan frowned. "What about ghosts charged by positive emotions? If the pack only has positive slime, how would we battle those?"

Cynthia slid her Ghost Mace into her pocket. "You want to be known as the Ghostbuster who killed Casper the Friendly Ghost?"

Jordan's eyes went wide as he followed the idea out of the quantifiable and into the emotional. "Oh, of course. No, I wouldn't want to hurt nice ghosts."

Regina laughed.

Cynthia pointed at the new pack. "How does this help us with our current situation? We handled the animations with the proton packs."

"But the possessor is still out there." Simon crossed his arms. "If we soak possessed people with the positive slime, then they'll eject the possessor."

Regina was confused. "Why can't we just use the proton streams? They worked on the goat."

Simon nodded, "Well, we didn't know any better at the time, but the streams damage was mitigated by the extra souls the Soul Eater had absorbed. Normal possessors have no means of increasing their powers, and the host takes all of the damage."

"This is positive slime?" Regina asked while holding up her Ghost Mace.

Simon nodded.

Regina looked again at her Ghost Mace and mumbled, "Pocket exorcism."

"Almost," Simon added. "The Mace is more of a deterrent. It probably wouldn't eject any possessors."

"Alright," Cynthia took over. "What's our game plan? We can eject the possessor, but only if we get close. He can generate animations, and he's probably going to be pretty powerful if he's one of the Seven."

"We also need to interrogate him, and we can't do that with him in a trap."

"Regina's right," Jordan said. "How do we do that?"

Simon thought on it for only a second. "Being a possessor might not be in his favor. He's weaker in the body than when he's out of it."

"Still," Cynthia paused before continuing. "How are we supposed to hold him without him escaping on his own?"

"Not to mention," Regina added, "He's in a State Building. We won't be able to bring nuclear accelerators anywhere near them without getting arrested. We're lucky the police didn't arrest us today."

Simon slowly dragged his hands over his face while holding his glasses. "I've got an idea of how to hold him, but I'll need time," he turned to Jordan and Cynthia, "and funds."

It was Cynthia's turn to frown. "We'll talk." She turned toward the rest of them, "Jordan, you're our on-call Ghostbuster. Any calls coming in are yours. If you need help, I'll join you. Regina," she turned toward the newest Ghostbuster, "tail this possessor. We don't even know his name. I want as much information as you can get before Simon is ready for us to make our move. Unless Jordan needs me, I'll be here putting together our plan of attack."

Regina spent the next few days gathering data on the possessor and the skin suit that he was wearing. She reported it all back to Cynthia, who incorporated the useful bits into her strategy to capture and interrogate the possessor.

The possessed man was Brent Allen and he was in charge of the Department of Natural Resources. Other than his position with the state, Brent didn't have anything about him that made him seem like a great candidate for possession. Whatever had chosen to possess Brent had either chosen him specifically because he was a higher up official in the local government or it had been a completely random choice.

To be fair, Regina was disappointed. It had been three days of tailing Brent Allen and all she had been able to report of value was information that was already public knowledge.

In contrast, the rest of the team had made a ton of headway.

Those three days had resulted in Simon building his piece of the plan. In exchange for using a proton pack in one of their commercials, Karl's Dealership in nearby Ankeny gave a used Chevy Express van. In the last few days, he had essentially rebuilt it into their company vehicle. The white van now had the decals sent with the rest of the franchise kit, but also had a bunch of new stuff attached to the roof.

"That's not the best part," Simon explained when Regina asked about it. He waved a hand at the opened back doors. Along the inner walls were equipment cages. "Those cages double as a faraday cage. When the van is completed, I'll be able to remotely trigger a charge that will run through the cages."

"And that will do…what exactly?"

Simon smiled. "The van will double as a really large trap that we can sit in."

"Ghost interrogation room."

"Exactly."

Ghost sightings had slowed way down with only one call in those three days, so Jordan had spent most of that time helping Simon with the van.

Regina was sitting in the office and reading up on the Seven when Cynthia walked in. She was wearing her jumpsuit.

"The guys say that the van is ready, if you're up for it, I think it's time for us to interrogate a possessor."

Regina suited up and headed toward the parking lot, Cynthia was already in the driver's seat while Jordan and Simon loaded the last of the equipment into the cages.

"All good to go?" Regina asked as she climbed into the back with the guys.

Jordan smiled, "When I say that this is the most capable ghost catching mobile unit in the world, I'm really saying that if I was a ghost, it would be an honor to be capture by the people driving this vehicle."

Regina returned his smile. "Well, alright then."

Cynthia punched something on the dashboard and sirens were suddenly emitting from the top of the van. "Let's save the city."

"Or just the Wallace Building…" Simon added.

Excitement filled Regina's veins as the van peeled out of the office park.

She was finally about to get some answers.

To Be Continued in Slimed! Part 2…


	5. Episode 5: Slimed! Part 2

The newly minted Ghostbusters Van had sirens that Regina could see herself learning to enjoy, but at that moment, the shrill whine was only a hum in the back of her mind as she prepared herself for taking on the Possessor.

The van pulled into the parking lot at the Wallace Building and Simon was suddenly unlocking the metal grating lining the walls.

From the front, Cynthia called out to him, "Jordan and I will carry the proton packs and the traps. I want you and Regina to have the slime packs."

"Will it work against the things he summons?" Regina asked as Simon helped her into her slime pack.

"Yes, but not like the proton packs." He straightened his glasses as Jordan helped him into his slime pack. "The slime is positively charged, so it should neutralize the negatively charged entities."

"What does 'neutralize' mean?"

"The force that mobilizes them, either the Possessor or a soul that he has enlisted, will lose its physical form. It won't be easy for it to build a new one. As far as you're concerned, it'll be long gone."

That was good enough for Regina. She helped Jordan into his proton pack and they all climbed out of the back of the van.

Simon showed Regina how to use the slime pack. "Just pull this lever up here. You'll get more distance the farther back you pull it. It only has about 30 yards of pressure."

"What happens when I run out of slime?"

Simon shook his head. "This is just like your Ghost Mace. The slime is duplicates itself. If you find that your streams are weak, just give it a minute." Simon was suddenly worried. "Oh, and think happy thoughts."

"Really?" She smirked, thinking Simon was joking.

Simon nodded. "Yes. The slime is generated by emotions. It might self-replicate, but that doesn't mean that it inherits the same mood. It absorbs the moods around it, but if there are strong enough emotions that are contradictory to what is in the rest of the tank, the slime could…turn."

"That's bad?"

Jordan joined them. "The baddest. Instead of hurting Bluto, you're feeding spinach to Popeye."

"Happy thoughts," Regina gave a thumbs up to them. "Got it."

Cynthia came around from the front, and Regina helped her into her proton pack.

"So," Jordan said, "what's the plan?"

"That," Cynthia pointed down the street where police cars were racing toward them. Their lights and sirens on. None of them had noticed the new sirens, as they had already grown accustomed to the sound in their new van.

"As it turns out," Cynthia continued, "we have city contracts, and I was able to leverage that to get local law enforcement to help us with our situation."

"You're a goddess," Jordan said through a wide grin.

"Don't go malevolent, or we might have to slime you next." Simon added without a hint of mirth.

Cynthia smirked. "You can try."

The police cars pulled in next to the van, and the first officer stepped out and walked up to meet the Ghostbusters.

"What do you need from us?"

Cynthia pointed at the Wallace Building. "We need Brent Allen out of that building. We'd prefer it if you could bring him to the back of our van, but if he struggles at all leave him to us."

"While the city might have signed off on this, it doesn't change the fact that I can't arrest someone without probable cause."

Jordan stepped up. "You're only bringing him out here for questioning. Besides, he's impersonating a state official. That's very illegal, last I checked."

The officer nodded. "I can work with that. We'll get him out here." He turned and started up the sidewalk and toward the building with his men.

Simon added quickly. "He's dangerous. Try not to…spook him."

Cynthia rolled her eyes.

To all of their surprise, the police were in the building for less than a minute before they were walking out with Brent Allen between them. He wasn't handcuffed or resisting, he was only walking with the police as they directed him toward the Ghostbusters.

"What can I do for the Ghostbusters?"

Cynthia stepped forward. "You can exit the man you're currently possessing and allow us to detain you for questioning." Her hands gripped her neutrino wand with white knuckles.

"I don't know about possessions, but I do know that I won't let you detain me." Before the Ghostbusters could argue, he added, "You can ask me anything you like, though."

"Where's my brother?" Regina demanded.

"Excuse me?" Brent looked confused.

Cynthia waved Regina back and stepped forward. "If you're not what we think you are, would you mind taking a painless and simple test?"

Before he could answer, Regina stepped forward again and shot the Ghost Mace into his face.

It came out of the can much like normal Mace would. Spraying in an arc and hitting his face in a steady stream. Except this wasn't mace, it was positively charged slime.

Cynthia would have reprimanded Regina, but she didn't have time.

Brent's face stretched, his jaw reaching down to his chest as his eyes swelled and a scream of paranormal proportions echoed across the city.

As one, the police officers all drew their guns and aimed it at the possessed Brent Allen.

"Put your guns down," Simon yelled. "They wouldn't do anything anyway."

None of the officers lowered their guns, but they also didn't start shooting. The Ghostbusters all accepted that as a sign of restraint.

"Well," Cynthia said, "what are you waiting for." She pushed Regina forward. "Soak him!"

Regina raised her hose and pulled the lever. Slime shot in a solid stream directly at the possessed man. Like he was attached to wires that they couldn't see, he shot into the sky in a high arc and came back down closer to the boarded up glass doors of the Wallace Building. The maneuver put about thirty yards between the Ghostbusters and the spirit.

As one they started running toward him until he let out another howl. His jaw stretched again, going further down his chest, and energy rolled from him in waves. As it did, it carried with it two more spirits.

The ghosts were both corpulent men beyond realistic measures and were wearing torn business suits. They glowed a faint blue hue. Their presence stopped the Ghostbusters' charge, but only for a moment.

"We've got this," Jordan said with a wink. He shot up at the nearest former politician, and the spirit dove out of the way of the proton stream. "Incredibly nimble for his size," he mumbled before adding, "Slime the possessor and these guys should disappear."

Simon and Regina ran at Brent the Possessor and pulled on the large slime levers again. He lifted off of the ground again and spiraled out of the path of the streams.

"Widen your stream," Simon pointed at a dial on the side of the hose and Regina did as he said.

The result was immediate and similar to turning a shower head from jet to wide. The stream panned horizontally and made it harder for Brent to avoid the pink mess.

To her surprise, Regina got the first hit as the Possessor twisted to avoid Simon's wide spray and went through Regina's, which she had turned vertical. Going through it, he collapsed to the ground and shuddered, the pavement cracking underneath him as he fought to hold onto his position in Brent's body.

"I need to get to the truck," Simon called. "You got this?"

Regina nodded and turned the dial and the slime being projected returned to the jet setting again. She focused all of her attention on getting the Possessor soaked. Fueled by her need for information about her brother, she was aiming to drown the ghost in the good vibes the slime was permeated with.

As his body continued to convulse, suddenly the possessor was making barking noises as his mouth stretched open again. With a final shudder, Brent Allen vomited the possessor up and into the sky where it floated, looking like a large bat-winged demon in a bright yellow hue. Horns curled behind its ears, and its fangs dripped menacingly.

Giving one last roar at the Ghostbusters and Police, it turned and launched into the sky.

Or at least tried to.

Jordan had been correct. The animating spirit behind the ghosts that he and Cynthia had been wrestling with had been the Possessor. When he was gone, they had vanished, allowing the other two Ghostbusters to join them with the Possessor.

Two proton streams shot into the sky and wrapped around the feet of the demon-looking Possessor. Together, they dragged the spirit towards the back of the Ghostbusters' new van.

"Don't look at the van," he yelled as they entered the range of the still-untested giant trap. Remembering the Police, he yelled it again in their direction.

The spirit pulled and jerked in the grasp of the proton streams, but Cynthia and Jordan were working like a well-oiled machine. As one would get pulled, the other would pull harder. They worked like that, back and forth, until Jordan was standing almost at the van.

"Now?" He asked through gritted teeth.

Simon nodded and pulled a lever that was built into the outside wall of the van.

A loud hum began to build up as whatever machinations that Simon had modded the van with began to spin up. The inside of the van grew incredibly bright and the Ghostbusters all did their best to not look at the light. Jordan and Cynthia shortened their streams until the demon Possessor was bathed in the light.

They held him there until Simon shouted, "Release!"

They cut their streams and the Possessor was yanked into the back of the van. Simultaneously, Simon pressed the lever into the other direction and the doors slammed shut.

"Holy shit," Jordan said. "Did that actually work?"

Simon raised an eyebrow. "Of course it worked."

The van shuddered and then rocked as the ghost crashed around inside.

The Ghostbusters thanked the Police and Cynthia quickly explained how they would be containing the creature, as to assure the local PD that it wouldn't be released again.

When she was done, she walked up to the Ghostbusters and smiled. "Well," she looked at Regina. "I think you've got a few questions for that thing?"

Smiling, Regina led her way to the front of the van and climbed into the cab.

In the cab of the van, the Ghostbusters crammed in to get a good look through the faraday cage.

The ghost was starting to mellow out and shrank down from his demon form. When his size was back to something at least slightly more normal, he took on the shape of Regina's brother, Blake.

"Oh, look. I found your brother." He let out a long cackle.

"Who are you?" Jordan asked.

The ghost grinned and razor sharp teeth replaced Blake's normal smile. "Is this what we're doing now? Conversation?" He sighed. "I tried that earlier, remember? You sprayed me with Mace."

"Well, this is what we're doing, so, answer the damn question." Regina barked.

The ghost took on Blake's voice, "Hey sis, thanks for leaving me to burn in Hell."

Regina slammed her hands against the faraday cage and Simon pulled her back while Jordan continued talking to the ghost.

"Answer the question, please."

The ghost's voice returned to its eerie echo. "You're no fun." He smiled a toothy smile again, "She's fun, but you're not." He let out a long sigh. "There is no translation for my name in your language."

"Try," Cynthia growled.

"The closest that I can offer is 'A Raging Lion.'"

Cynthia looked at Jordan and he nodded a confirmation. This ghost was one of the seven.

"Well, I think you're our first, so we'll call you 'One,'" Jordan said.

One laughed. It was long and over the top. When he finally stopped and saw that the four Ghostbusters looked confused, he asked, "Are you being serious?"

"About what?" Cynthia asked.

"I'm not the first of the Seven that you've dispatched."

"What?"

He folded Blake's arms. "You have taking out the…um…'Fearful Storm,' would be the translation, and our soul-eater, 'The Predator with the Open Mouth." He leaned back on an invisible chair. "The Fearful Storm attacked you near where we were summoned. His job was to protect our discovery." He waved his hands about. "The Soul-Eater has always been difficult to control. He had no purpose other than his own."

"Why are you telling us this?" Cynthia demanded.

She was right to ask, the other Ghostbusters realized. He had no reason to help them. He was already captured and wasn't going anywhere.

"Because there's nothing you can do about it," One answered. "The wheels have been turned."

"Why were you in Brent Allen?" Cynthia continued questioning.

One smiled, "Wheels needed to be turned."

"And where are the rest of the Seven?"

One shrugged. "I have not been informed. The Seven are agents of chaos. We stir the spiritual energies in preparation for the Rise of Erra."

"I thought Erra was here already," Cynthia stated.

One nodded. "Yes, but he has yet to make his," he waved jazz hands, "entrance. He can't do that until he has more power."

"Where's Erra?"

One shook his head. "That isn't your question to ask." He smirked, obviously excited for what was coming next.

Cynthia touched Jordan's arm, and they left the cab of the van and joined Regina and Simon.

"We won't get too much more out of him," Cynthia said before facing Regina. "There's only one question left to ask. Are you ready for it?"

Regina didn't answer and stomped back to the van. Climbing into the cab, she shut the door behind her.

"Hey sis," One said in Blake's voice. "Welcome back."

"Where is Blake?"

"Right here, silly."

"Where is my brother?"

"I told you the first time," One leaned forward. "He's burning in what your small fleshy existence would refer to as Hell."

Regina smiled. "You're forgetting that I was there. Somebody possessed him. Where did he go?"

Blake's face stopped smiling. "Erra used him as a doorway. Many spirits left through your brother, but only the final one wears his flesh."

"Erra has him?"

"This sense of identity that you attach to his flesh is silly. Erra is in possession of your brother's body, but it is very likely that his spirit has been devoured or released during the Great Exodus."

Regina gulped. "Great Exodus?"

One pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "When your brother puked up spirits." He sighed and leaned back against his invisible chair again. "Either way, your best chance of getting your brother back is to find Erra." One snickered. "Good luck. He's a god with a penchant for destruction. Your brother is likely batting for my team."

"Where is Erra?"

One furrowed Blake's brow. "I can feel him. He is close. That is all I know."

Regina leaned toward the passenger side door and rolled down the window. "Hey Simon, is the portable containment unit installed?"

"Yes," Simon called back. "Purple button."

"Thanks," she immediately located the purple button and slammed her hand down on it.

One of the sides of the faraday cage popped open and a bright light emitted from a piece of the machinery there. The machine was larger and looked like a series of three red-painted lockers welded together. The bright light was arrived with a pop in Regina's ears as the air pressure in the van changed. Much as with the van previously, the bright light pulled at the ghost. One howled, fighting it, but was more resigned this time than he had been when the van had collected him.

The Ghostbusters all sat around their 'conference room' table, which was more of a small table in their break room, but it served their purposes.

"So, we've caught three of the Seven?" Jordan asked.

Regina nodded. "If we can trust an ancient and evil entity."

Simon nodded. "I do. He's powerful and cocky. I trust everything he said because he thinks we can't do anything about it."

"And he might be right," Cynthia added. "We only found One because Regina was walking around blindly following PKE readings."

Regina nodded. "Isn't there a way that we all can do that?"

Cynthia folded her arms. "Four people covering all of the Des Moines Metro? We'll never find him. That's not being pessimistic, that's being factual."

"Why only four of us?" Simon asked raising an eyebrow.

"What?" Cynthia was confused.

"Well, why can't the whole city search for us as well?"

Jordan's eyes lit up. "I just read about this in a book." He ran to his cubicle and then came directly back, tossing a worn copy of a book on the table. The name was Broken Nights, by Matthew Davenport, and the cover was a mix of blacks and purples with some sort of vigilante standing on a car with rage in his eyes.

"It's a novel about a superhero. He designs an application so that anyone who downloads it can use it to report crimes."

Simon nodded. "That's exactly where I was going with this. We take the PKE app that I made for Regina to KCWI and do a special on Great Day. Once we tell everyone in the city that they can be Junior Ghostbusters just by downloaded the application, we'll have the entire city helping us."

Regina shook her head. "It won't work. The app needs the case attachment."

Simon shook his head. "We'll do a scaled down version of the app. It'll scan wireless, carrier signals, and every other sensor on the phones. It won't be anywhere near as powerful as your app, but with the whole city running it…"

"We'll know every PKE spike in the entire city," Cynthia mumbled.

Simon nodded and high-fived Jordan who was waiting patiently with his hand out.

"We're the only Ghostbusters in the Midwest," Cynthia said louder. "If we get the everyone using this application, we'll be busier than we ever could have hoped."

"Well," Simon slowly stood up, "then I had better get to work."


	6. Episode 6: Blast from the Past

The TV cut to an ad for the Ghostbusters that had just began making waves in Des Moines.

Daniel Carter grimaced as Cynthia Palmer stepped into the screen holding a cell phone while wearing her Ghostbuster uniform. She pointed at the screen.

"If you go into your application store, you can search 'Ghostbuster Neighborhood Watch.' Once you've downloaded the app, you'll be helping us to locate spiritual dangers throughout the city." She pocketed the phone and added. "We're on the hunt for major spikes in spiritual activity and your help will give us the edge we need to find what we're looking for."

A Ghostbuster with a nametag that read "Ross" pointed at the screen and energetically said, "Only _you_ can save the city! Be a Ghostbuster and download our app today!"

Dan clicked the remote to change the channel. After everything that he had been through, he couldn't stand Cynthia Palmer and liked the idea of making her disappear with a click.

Instead, the remote clicked, but the channel didn't change. He hit the button again a few times, but nothing happened. He sighed, trying to think of where he had last seen AAA batteries in his small apartment.

That's when he also noticed that Cynthia's face was expanding on the screen as if she was about to climb out and ruin his life all over again. Growing to fill the entire thing. Dan leaned forward and reached toward the screen as if he could reach out and strangle his old friend.

A knock at the door reminded him that his television wasn't going to start ejecting people from it. Hell, it was a console television from the early nineties.

Dan grabbed his crutches and used them to hop with his one foot to the door. When he answered the door, Daniel found a white bearded gentleman dressed in a business suit.

"Hello, Daniel," the man stuck out his hand. Dan glared at it, but didn't accept the handshake. "I'm here about an urgent matter. Might I come in?"

"Who are you?"

"I think that I'm someone who can help you get what you desire."

Dan's glare turned into a frown. "How does what I want become an urgent matter?"

The older man smiled a toothy grin. "Urgent to me, fortuitous for yourself."

"And you seem to know what I want?"

"I do," he answered. "Would you let me in if I told you that I could help you rain Hell down on Cynthia Palmer?"

For the first time in a long time, Dan felt the edges of his mouth curl up. He hopped out of the way of the door and allowed the older gentleman to enter.

"My name," he said as he took Dan's seat in front of the console television, "is Martin Murray."

"Tell me Martin," Dan sat on the console tv and left his crutches leaning against the nearby wall, "what can you do about Cynthia Palmer?"

"Absolutely nothing," Martin frowned. "Unfortunately, my efforts against her have been met with resistance." His frown was replaced with a smile that made Dan feel uneasy. "But I can help you do what I couldn't."

"How's that?"

Martin reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a pill bottle and a flask.

"Take both of these and you'll be able to ruin her life." He handed them to Dan who proceeded to look them over.

"And these are?"

Martin raised an eyebrow. "A pill to kill you and an elixir to revive you."

"How is my dying supposed to hurt Cynthia Palmer?"

Martin shook his head. "The flask will bring you back. Bigger and stronger. You'll be able to destroy her and everything she's built."

"And then what?"

"Whatever you want. I'm building a new world and people with the gifts I'm giving you will rule it." Martin stood and walked to the door. "Drink the flask first, it won't taste good. Negatively charged slime never does. Then take the pill. The effects should be quick, so get comfortable." He opened the door and stood half in the apartment as he said. "Then hunt down and destroy Cynthia Palmer."

Martin Murray shut the door behind himself, and Dan set the pill bottle down. He twisted the cap and sniffed. The smell wasn't bad or good, but the something about the smell reminded him of that day in Afghanistan.

Sergeant Palmer was asked to assign patrol detail and had chosen Private First Class Daniel Carter to accompany her on the morning rounds. He had only been a few days from his tour ending, and was looking forward to the flight to Germany before heading home.

When their truck had been hit by the IED, Dan was surprised that he had come out of it unscathed. He got out of the vehicle and was immediately ducking enemy fire. Diving back into the truck, he saw that the Sergeant hadn't moved. Shaking her a few times, she was alive, but unconscious.

He pulled her from the truck on the side with the least amount of gunfire hitting the truck. The whole time he was radioing in their position and the attack. Looking around the truck, he couldn't see where the gunfire was coming from, but he knew he wasn't getting anywhere if he had to drag Sergeant.

When she started to wake up, he told her as much. "I can get back on foot, I'll get help."

"No," she sat up and grunted. Her eyes told him that Palmer was concussed. "Return fire. Keep them back."

Dan shook his head. "I can get there. Stay here."

"Private, that's an order. Do not leave."

He ignored her and ran away from the truck. Gunfire peppered the ground around him as he ran. Dan pulled his pistol and returned fire, but the movement slowed him down.

He made it about thirty yards when he saw another truck that must have been sent to answer his radio call. Dan started waving his arms in between shots over his shoulder at the invisible combatants.

Then he stepped on another IED. His layover in Germany didn't happen.

If Cynthia Palmer hadn't assigned him, if she hadn't been injured, and if she hadn't been right, he would still have his leg.

He drank the flask. While the taste was about as subdued as the smell, the effect was immediate. Dan's rage only seemed to grown inside him. As he finished the flask, all he could think about was destroying Cynthia Palmer. It was the reason that he was still alive.

Alive? Through his rage, he remembered the pill. The flask would revive him, but the pill would kill him. Whatever transformation these tools were going to do to Dan's body he just didn't care. That Murray fellow told him this is how he would get his revenge on Cynthia.

Without thinking about it, he popped the lid on the pill bottle and swallowed the only pill that was inside.

Nothing happened immediately. Dan hadn't expected it to. Even with his rage, he knew pills still had to dissolve to be of any use. So he waited and thought on ways to destroy his old Sergeant.

He didn't have to wait long, and after about three minutes his chest suddenly felt too small for his heart. The beating of his heart grew louder and he could feel the pressure throughout his whole body as his ticker struggled to keep beating.

It was a struggle that it wouldn't win.

Daniel Carter died.

A minute later, his soul, charged by the negatively charged slime, tore itself from his corpse and looked down on to his body.

Rage filled him as he realized that the only way he would get his vengeance on Cynthia Palmer, a Ghostbuster, was to become a ghost. She had cost him his leg, and now she had cost him his life.

With a roar of fury that shattered the windows, Dan's ghost launched himself out of the apartment and into the city.

"I think that went well," Regina said as they left the studio.

Jordan nodded. "Especially for our first televised appearance. We should think about doing a commercial," he shrugged. "Might get us more calls."

"If this app takes off," Simon said, "than we won't need to do any advertising. It'll be assigning us jobs on a regular basis."

They were unloading their equipment into the van, handing it off to Simon to load into the appropriate cages.

Cynthia had unloaded most of her equipment when she noticed that her PKE Meter wasn't anywhere in sight.

"Shoot," she said. "Hey guys, I'll be right back." She hooked her thumb over her shoulder. I left my PKE Meter at the coffee table."

Jordan shook his head. "One little tv-spot and suddenly our little warrior is forgetting her equipment. I thought it would take longer for the spotlight to blind you."

Cynthia hit him in the arm. "You're hilarious. I'll be right back."

Running back into the building, she hopped into the elevator for the ride to the television station's floor.

Once she was back in the studio and had explained her predicament to the receptionist, he waved her back.

The PKE Meter was right where she thought it would be, sitting on the edge of table where the coffee was served. As she reached for it, Cynthia jumped as it suddenly came to life, the antennae on it lighting up as they spread out.

"What the hell?"

She grabbed it off of the table and grabbed her Ghost Mace from her belt at the same time.

"You won't need that," a familiar voice said from behind her.

Cynthia spun around, bringing the Ghost Mace up as she did, but she never got a chance to use it. A spectral hand grabbed her wrist while another grabbed her throat.

Recognition lit Cynthia's eyes up. "Private?"

"Hey Sarge," he smiled, but it was bitter. "Saw your news spot. Great work, but I think I can do better."

As he said it, Cynthia realized that her wrist wasn't being held anymore, so much as Private Carter's spectral blue wrist had begun to merge with her own. Within seconds, his spiritual presence had slid into her physical form. Cynthia couldn't move at all as Dan started taking control of her body.

"You know what they say," he said with a mix of her voice and his own, "possession is 9/10ths of the law."

Back at the van, Simon waited patiently for Cynthia to return so he could close of the grating over where the PKE Meters hung.

When she finally made it back to the van, she looked up at him, leaned a bit to see his entire chest, and then handed him the PKE Meter. The screen was broken on it.

"What happened to it?"

Cynthia shrugged. "I don't know. Got up there and they seemed to be having some sort of celebration. I think it got bounced around during that." She leaned again, and Simon looked down at his chest to see if he had something on it. Just the nametag on his jumpsuit.

"Is there something on me?"

Cynthia shook her head, "Nah, Franco. I thought I saw something, but just the light playing tricks."

"Franco? Since when do you call me Franco?"

She shrugged. "I was thinking while I was in the elevator, that if we're going to take this to the next level we need to be working on our branding. The people see our nametags, we should use them to address each other."

Simon frowned, but it made sense. "Ok…Palmer."

For some reason that was outside of Simon's understanding, Cynthia cringed when he said her name, as if she had been physically hurt by it.

He locked the cage and hopped down from the van, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she paused as if struggling to remember, "Simon. I think the elevator might have messed with my head."

"Or something like that," he added skeptically. "Are you driving?"

Cynthia reached into her jumpsuit pocket and fished out the keys, "Sure."

The ride back to their headquarters on wasn't a long one. The office building where they hung their jumpsuits was only a mile from the television station, but Cynthia took her time, every now and then she seemed confused by a turn, but when Jordan asked her about it, she smiled and said, "Don't worry about it, Ross, I'm just lost in thought."

"Just don't be lost in Des Moines," he chuckled. "Some of us have things to do."

When they pulled in, Cynthia tossed him the keys and said, "I'm not feeling the best. Think I'll head home for the rest of the day."

Jordan nodded. "Sure thing. If we need you, we'll call."

Climbing into her pickup truck, Cynthia angled the mirror down to look into her eyes.

"Stop trying to block your memories from me," Dan growled into the mirror. "If I get discovered, I will kill your friends."

"Listen to me, Dan," Cynthia was looking back at her own face in the mirror, but she wasn't seeing herself, she was seeing the spectral former Private First Class. "I don't know why you're doing this, or why you're so," she gasped as she felt the emotions radiating off of his soul, "angry, but this can't end well for you. The best case scenario is you ending up inside our containment unit, while worst case has me screaming inside of my own body and annoying the hell out of you until you finally leave."

"Or," Dan countered. "Me listening to your agonizing screams as I dismantle your life piece by piece before a distraught Cynthia Palmer, former Ghostbuster, is found hanging in her apartment." He shrugged, "Besides, can't you feel the exchange taking place?" In the mirror, Dan's spectral image glowed a brighter blue and shimmered. "The longer I am in your body, the more I take from you." He smiled menacingly. "I'm absorbing your soul. You'll be around long enough to watch your life fall apart, and then you won't exist anymore."

"You're an idiot, they won't believe you're me."

"They already bought it." He paused for a minute. "Wait a second, one of your thoughts just drifted into my mind." Dan took the keys out of the ignition and got out of the car.

"What are you doing?" Cynthia demanded from inside her own head. Shock hit her as she saw what he was planning to do. "No, you can't."

Dan walked back into the office.

"Forget something?" Regina asked.

"Yup," he punched her across face and kicked Simon in the gut as he stood up.

"Cynthia, what are you doing?" Jordan came running forward. Dan threw a stapler at him forcing him to duck.

"Ross," Dan was trying to find something in Cynthia's memory to use against him. He was coming up empty. Cynthia had respect for this friend. Hurting him would hurt her. "It's time you became what you hunt."

Cynthia's body walked to the caged lockers and, with strength that surprised the rest of the Ghostbusters, tore the lock off of her own. She put on the pack and wasted no time drawing the neutrino wand and launching a stream at Jordan.

He only barely was able to step out of the way in time and dove toward Simon.

Simon grabbed his arm, "She's possessed."

A proton stream blasted the desk and they each grabbed Regina's arms and tugged her toward the back office.

"No shit, Sherlock," Regina replied.

"We are leading her toward the Containment Unit," Simon continued, ignoring Regina.

Jordan's face blanched. "That's bad. Very bad."

Simon nodded.

"We need to stop her."

Simon joined Regina this time as they looked at Jordan with dumbfounded expressions.

Another proton stream almost took off Regina's head.

"Come on back, guys," Not-Cynthia's voice sing-songed to them. "I only want to kill you and undo everything you've built."

"We have no choice," Jordan said. "If we don't go to the back room, we're going to know what it's like to be busted."

Simon nodded and led the way through the secured door and into the room workshop where he stored all of his prototypes and the containment unit.

"Is there anything in here that we can use?" Regina asked.

Simon shook his head. "No, nothing in here is complete."

"And we don't want to hurt Cynthia," Jordan added. "We need slime."

Regina suddenly remembered her Ghost Mace.

"I've got an idea." She pointed at the door. "When she…it…whatever comes in here, distract her."

As if her words commanded it, a proton stream blew the door to splinters. They all ducked as Cynthia walked in.

"Um," Regina waved in Cynthia's direction, "I said I need a distraction…"

Jordan's eyes went wide, "But she has a nuclear accelerator attached to her back."

Simon rolled his eyes, stood up and grabbed some parts off of the work bench and shrugged. "Hey, you're using that proton pack all wrong."

He raised the parts up in a gesture that made it look like he was going to use them to shoot at her.

Cynthia spun the wand toward him and shouted, "Is this better?" before launching a proton stream at him.

He only barely jumped out of the way, but it was enough of a distraction for Regina to sneak up behind Cynthia switch off her proton pack and soak the back of her head in the mace slime.

Cynthia roared in pain as the positively charged slime tried to overwhelm Dan's spectral energy.

He roared again and turned to flee but was halted as Jordan and Regina held onto the proton pack.

Cynthia's head turned around unnaturally to face them both and in it they didn't see Cynthia anymore. Her face had morphed into that of a man. She slipped out of the pack before her head twisted forward again and she flew back the way she had come and out of the building.

"Well," Simon said, "that was new."

Cynthia hid inside her own mind while the wounded Dan flew through the air. When he finally came to a stop, gripping her head and howling into the air, they were in a small one bedroom apartment.

On the floor next to a large console television was a body laying face down. It had only one leg.

"So," Cynthia asked, "this is your apartment then?"

A demon like roar escaped from her mouth again, and Cynthia noticed something.

"Do you feel that?" She asked Dan. "That slime you were hit with is giving me back my strength."

Using her will, she confronted Dan.

They were still in her mind, but to each of them it looked like they were in the desert, facing each other on a long dirt road.

Afghanistan.

Cynthia looked down at herself to see she was wearing her Army fatigues.

"Well, that's different." She looked across at Dan to see that he was in his fatigues, too. On closer examination, she could tell that he was hurt. It wasn't his injury from when he was last in Afghanistan, instead he had burn marks all over his head, mostly toward the back where the slime had hit. As for his actual injury, his leg was still there. In spectral form his wound was nonexistent.

"I had years of rehab!" Dan shouted at her. "All because you ordered me along on that patrol!"

From seemingly nowhere, he drew a pistol and aimed it at her.

"You were injured, Private, because you can't follow a simple order." Suddenly Cynthia realized that she was holding a proton pack wand. She flipped a switch on it. "If you had spent the last decade focusing on building a life instead of hating me, you might have been happy." She spun a dial on the side. "I'm sorry that your life went to shit, but I'm done letting you ruin mine."

"No more talking!" Dan shouted, and began firing at her.

Cynthia flinched before realizing that the gun wasn't actually firing. It clicked, over and over, but no bullets fired from the gun.

Dan looked at the pistol with rage before throwing it to the side and charging Cynthia.

"I don't think so," Cynthia shouted and then flipped the final switch.

A boson dart launched from her proton pack and hit Dan square in the chest.

Instantly, Cynthia was laying on the apartment floor coughing as blue spectral energy leapt from her chest. She climbed to her feet and saw that she was standing across the room from Dan's ghost.

"I'm sorry that you were wounded," Cynthia said softly, "but the wound didn't ruin your life and neither did I. You ruined your life by focusing on hate and revenge instead of moving on."

Dan's face was contorted by the rage, and Cynthia could see her words weren't having much effect.

"You can move on now, though," she continued. "Let go of your hate and go find something for yourself in this new existence."

"NO!" he flew at her.

Cynthia flinched and threw up her arms.

A crash made her open her eyes and she looked around to see that Simon, Regina, and Jordan had kicked in the door.

Proton streams wrangled Dan as a trap slid underneath him. Within seconds, Dan was in the trap and Jordan was looking over Cynthia.

"We need to make sure you're healthy," he explained. "Kinda saw your neck do some weird stuff that it shouldn't do."

"Holy crap!" Regina was exclaiming. "What happened?"

Cynthia pointed at the body on the floor and explained who he was and what had happened.

"He's still fresh," Simon observed. "He shouldn't have been able to create a spiritual form yet. It takes time and the collection of energies."

"He needed to culminate more emotional energy," Jordan agreed.

"More slime?" Regina asked.

Jordan nodded.

"How did you guys find me?" Cynthia asked. "I didn't even know Dan lived here."

Regina smiled, "The app is working. Enough people have downloaded it that Simon was able to track you as you flew across the city."

Regina's watch buzzed and she took a look at it. "There's something in here giving off a reading."

Jordan drew his PKE Meter, but Cynthia snatched it out of his hand. She followed it to the console television where she found an unmarked pill bottle and a flask. The PKE Meter spiked when she waved it near the flask.

Picking it up, she overturned it until a blue slime dripped from it.

"Is that what I think it is?"

Jordan looked over her shoulder at the PKE Meter and then at the flask. "Looks like he chugged slime."

Simon raised an eyebrow. "If he drank negatively charged slime, it might give his spirit enough power to coalesce at the sooner after death."

"Where did he get it?" Regina asked.

Cynthia frowned. "Where do you think?" She crouched and inspected her former friend's body. "He fell away from the television." She eyed the chair. "Someone else was here. I'm willing to bet it was the Chairman."

"But…why?" Regina asked.

"To distract us?" Jordan supplied. "Or take us out."

Cynthia stood up and looked to her friends. "This is great news."

"Why?" Simon asked.

Jordan smiled. "Because the night that we released the PKE App to the public is the same night that they sent a hitman after us."

Regina caught on. "They're scared of us?"

Cynthia nodded. "They're scared of us."


	7. Episode 7: Down Spirits

Ghostbusters Episode 7: Down Spirits

The fact that the Des Moines Ghostbusters were becoming overwhelmed with work was an understatement. Since the chairman had unsuccessfully tried to eliminate Cynthia Palmer from the playing field, the reports of spiritual activity had skyrocketed.

In the time that the Chairman made his brief appearance in their lives, the Ghostbusters had been sleeping in shifts to handle the overflow of spirits. They had been lucky that most of the ghouls and slimers had been located within the Des Moines Metro Area, but they were also very aware of the fact that this wasn't a good thing. The more ghosts in the Des Moines Metro was indicative of Erra and the Seven consolidating their power.

Regina was the first to ask if whether or not this volume of spiritual energy had always existed and if they were only just now noticing it as the rest of Iowa began to adopt the PKE Meter phone application. Simon answered that by explaining that the application wasn't their only detection method and that they had been able to pick of the city's residual PKE reading before the app had existed. The app was mostly valuable in the fact that it pinpointed where spikes in that residual energy manifested, helping the Ghostbusters to find specific incursions from the spirit world. Unfortunately, this wasn't a scenario of a tool doing its job too well, and was more a situation in which the city's level of PKE was steadily climbing without any end in sight.

Which was why, exhausted and without options, Cynthia had organized a conference call with the franchise headquarters in New York City.

The Des Moines squad was huddled around a table in the small conference room that came with their rented office. Cynthia had only just finished pleading her case for support when a snarky voice on the other line replied.

"What this sounds like to me, Ms. Penner-"

"It's 'Palmer'," Cynthia stated for the third time.

"Right, Palmer," the voice replied, "What this sounds like to me, Ms. Palmer, is that your team isn't strategizing properly. Instead of hunting down every spook in Iowa," the voice paused before adding, "What even is Iowa? Is that a state?" When they didn't dignify his obvious barb at their state with a response, the voice continued. "Instead of hunting down every ghost in Iowa, why not use that wonder app that your team put together to classify the nasty threats first. The low level threats can wait until you've nailed down this…uh…what did you call him?"

"Erra," Jordan supplied.

"Erra? That doesn't sound so bad. Not like a Gozer or a Tiamat. More like a small mistake you can handle with white out or an eraser."

His voice grew distant as he leaned away from the phone.

"Ray, have you ever heard of beast that goes by the name of Erra?"

"Oh yeah, Peter!" An excited voice could be heard from further away. "Really nasty guy. If I recall, Marduk chose to relinquish his throne to Erra instead of dealing with him."

The first voice, Peter, grew louder as he returned to the phone. "I just consulted with my spiritual liason, and he said that you could easily take out this Erra guy without any support."

Cynthia's head hit the table.

"Listen," Peter continued. "Kick Erra's ass, break for coffee, and then spend you're newly found spare time cleaning up his left overs. If you're lucky, most of the residual PKE should leave with him when they see you beat up the big guy."

"So," Regina asked, a hint of pleading tone in her voice, "you're not going to send anyone to help us?"

"We're not heartless, sweetheart," Peter let out a sigh. "If it gets any worse, we'll consider it. I'm sure Louis is around here and he's been itching to put the proton pack back on for years." His voice suddenly took on a hurried pattered. "Anyway, have a nice day, call back really soon. Don't be a stranger. Bye!"

The line went dead.

"That man," Regina said, "is an asshole."

"He's one of the original," Jordan gave as way of an explanation.

"He's still an asshole," Cynthia replied, lifting her head.

The entire team were still in their jumpsuits, covered in sweat, grime, and slime. They were running on fumes.

"The asshole has a point, though," Regina added. "Why aren't we classifying them and hitting the biggest ones first?"

Simon reached across the table and hit a button on the projector, turning it on. As it warmed up, the glow of a computer desktop came to life on the wall.

Clicking his laptop's mouse a few times, Simon brought up a graph.

"We are doing exactly that," he explained. On the screen, the graph showed a steady increase in paranormal activity, reaching upwards toward a thousand pings from the application. "Everything below the red line at the 550 mark is being postponed until we've handled Erra and found your brother."

While everything below the red line was quite a lot of activity, everything above it was almost just as busy.

Jordan waved his hand at the graph. "Have we shown the New York guys this graph? That level of PKE can't go unnoticed. It's astronomical."

"Actually, we did," Cynthia answered. "Their exact response was, 'We've handled more with less, come back when it's literally astronomical.'"

Regina shook her head. "We are entirely on our own."

Cynthia nodded and then rubbed her eyes. Leaning back in her chair, she stared up at the data on the screen before turning to Jordan.

"What's the God Threshold? Where on this scale would Erra sit?"

Jordan nodded at Simon who proceeded to make more clicks with the mouse until the graph zoomed out to half the size that it was. At the top of the screen was another red line that wasn't labeled. "Everything below that mark answers to everything about the mark," Simon explained. "Erra would sit," he waved his hand about, "somewhere above that line."

Cynthia was acutely aware that there were no pings from the PKE application that reached above the God Threshold line.

"Absolutely nothing has been reported above that line?" She asked. "Is it possible that something is wrong with the app?"

Simon shook his head, "The app is more than capable of picking up on god level psychokinetic energy."

"Then we need to change our game plan. Erra is either hiding someplace where we don't have enough smartphones or he's found a way to hide his PKE. Any ideas?"

"The app is limited to the sensors in a standard smart phone. That means that the app won't work well in places that block those signals and also that their range is limited," explained Simon. "That would include large metal structures, as they can also interfere with readings." He shrugged, "We're looking for large empty spaces, spaces with little to no people, and spaces with lots of metal.

Sarcastically, Regina remarked, "Well, that really narrows it down in the middle of a city."

"In a way, it does," Cynthia replied. "Erra won't be anywhere without too many people. The Seven require chaos to distract us so that Erra can do his work, that means he will be where the people are. He won't be in the rural areas either, for the same reason. Erra is consolidating power, that means he's most likely in the city and using some large metal structure as his hideout."

Simon nodded, "I agree with that assessment."

"Then what do we do now?" Jordan asked.

"We split up," Cynthia stood and leaned over the table. "We need to hit every warehouse, every factory, stadium, and theater. Every structure that is large enough to disrupt cellphone signals." She pointed at Jordan and Simon. "You two cover east and south Des Moines, while Regina and I will cover north and west. Don't use the app, we need real PKE Meters in the field on this."

Jordan and Simon took the van while Cynthia and Regina took Cynthia's pickup truck. Just to be on the safe side, each team took two proton packs and two slime blowers with them. They had already covered most of the area between the East Village and the State Fair Grounds before deciding to move south and into the more industrial areas of southside Des Moines.

The job for the day was meticulous at best. They had decided to skip over the larger metal buildings that had full parking lots as it was unlikely that the app wouldn't be able to pick up something and not report with that many people in the location. That left plenty to be searched, though. Most of that area of the southside was industrial lots and older buildings that either were, or used to be, factories.

They found nothing. Absolutely nothing. They weren't even getting readings on some of the older buildings that should have had some sort of residual haunting on them. It was frustrating work.

After much consideration, Jordan told Simon to turn the van around. It was a little after noon, and they both felt that they'd earned a lunch at the local Zombie Burger.

Simon pulled into a parking lot for a train yard to turn the van around. As they slowly arced the van back toward the exit, Jordan's PKE Meter let out a quick beep.

"What was that?" Simon put the brakes on.

Jordan stared at the PKE Meter, waiting for the blip to return. When it didn't, he stuck the Meter out the window and waved it back and forth. Suddenly, another beep went out. "Looks like something small in the train yard." He pulled the Meter back in, looked at it, and frowned. "It's a Class 1 at best. Skip it."

Simon returned the frown. "We've been out here for hours with nothing to show for it, and I'd like to stretch my legs."

Jordan shrugged. "If Simon wants to strap on a heavy ass proton pack, who am I to argue. Very well, good sir. Lead the way."

Before they put on their packs, they went up to the train yard office and introduced themselves.

"Is this for real?" The only guy in the office asked. He was older and wearing coveralls as he sat behind the desk. He looked at the Ghostbusters over his glasses as he spoke.

"Real enough, sir," Simon answered. "We believe that a spiritual entity has taken up residence in your train yard. We certain that it's probably nothing, but we would like your permission to check it out."

"A ghost is in the yard?"

Jordan nodded.

"Are you guys going to bill me or anything?"

Simon shook his head. "This is part of a larger investigation that the city has hired us to check out."

The yard manager shrugged, pushed his glasses back up to their place, and turned back to his newspaper that he had been reading when the guys had come in. "Knock yourselves out and don't break anything."

They thanked him but were pretty sure that he wasn't listening to them anymore.

The yard consisted of mostly large train cars resting and awaiting pickup from the trains that would pass through. The guys stepped over several pairs of tracks and followed the PKE Meter from car to car until the signal was at its strongest.

"This one," Jordan said, before adding, "It is still registering as a Class 1. I'm not entirely sure that we'll even see it manifest."

Simon prepared his proton pack while Jordan grabbed the handle to the train car door and tugged the door open.

Simon, prepared to blast anything that came out at them, tensed. When nothing happened, he stepped closer to look in and was joined by Jordan.

In the back left corner of the train car was a small purple glow, no bigger than a softball.

Jordan heaved himself into the car and helped Simon up into it. Once they were both in the car, Jordan pulled the PKE Meter back out and aimed it at the purple haze. He stepped closer to it, trying to make out what it was while Simon kept his neutrino wand at the ready.

When Jordan was close enough to see what it was, he let out a snort. "It's a kitten."

Simon stepped a little closer and, now that Jordan had said what it was, realized that he could make it out too. It was the ghost of a small kitten, glowing purple as it slept in the corner of the boxcar.

Jordan leaned forward and stroked the top of its head, waking the little kitten up as he did so. It let out a wide yawn and looked from Jordan to Simon and back to Jordan.

"This is probably some cat that used to live in the train yard," Jordan explained. "I wonder how old the yard is. Well, it doesn't really matter. History is filled with beloved pets staying on long after they've died. Life was such a simple path of love and be loved that they didn't know how to stop. Kind of sad really."

Simon frowned. "That's it? Just a kitten?"

"Just a kitten," Jordan agreed. "Class 1 and a complete waste of time, because I'm not going to blast a…" Jordan stopped as he saw Simon raise his neutrino wand. "What are you doing?"

"Jordan, get back!"

Jordan was so engrossed in recalling historic facts, that he hadn't realized that the kitten had grown to almost three times its original diminutive size. He jumped back and looked at the PKE Meter.

"That's impossible."

"What is?" Simon demanded.

"He just grew to a Class 3, and he's not stopping." Jordan put away the PKE Meter and drew his own neutrino wand.

Simon frowned, "Is it starting to looking like a…cougar…or something?"

Jordan was suddenly lost in memory, trying to remember when someone had last mentioned a cougar. It was on the tip of his tongue.

And then it hit him.

"Not a cougar." He flipped a switch on the side of his neutrino wand and let the whine of the proton pack fill the train car. "A panther."

"What?" Simon flipped the same switch. The ghost cat was now getting to be taller than both of them. "Why a panther?"

"One of the Seven was referred to as a 'Furious Panther'."

Simon gulped and looked from the cat, to Jordan, and then back to the cat. "Furious?"

The phantom kitten turned Ghost Panther seemed to have finished its growth at around the size of a large van. It turned to face them and let out a roar that sent saliva and slime flying everywhere.

"Fire!" Jordan shouted. Both Ghostbusters shot their proton wands at the Ghost Panther and were rewarded as the Ghost Panther flinched in obvious pain. His flinch was massive, and the entire boxcar shook as the Ghost Panther slammed into the side.

The Ghost Panther recovered quickly, flexing and sending waves of energy reflecting back at the Ghostbusters. The energy lifted them off of their feet and sent them backward and out of the train car.

They managed to twist enough to land on their sides, saving their backs from the pain of crashing into the ground. Of course, it didn't save their shoulders or the rest of their bodies as the impact was felt throughout their bones. The air rushed from their lungs as they landed and they were struggling to get up as the large purple Ghost Panther launched itself out of the train car and onto Simon, pinning him to the ground.

The Panther's teeth wasted no time in trying to bite Simon's head completely off. Simon only barely managed to avoid the decapitation by slamming the side of the neutrino wand into the cat's mouth and putting all of his effort into pushing the head away from him. If he could get any sort of leverage, he might have twisted the wand and used the proton stream to send the Ghost Panther packing, but the feline was too heavy. Already Simon could feel how he was losing his life or death game of reverse tug-of-war.

A blast of energy hit the Ghost Panther in the side and sent him rolling off of and away from Simon. As Jordan continued to fire on the Jungle Book reject, Simon got to his feet and opened fire as well. Together they continued to pummel the Ghost Panther with as much energy as their Proton Packs could put out, not letting up for an instance.

With another roar, the Ghost Panther pulled the same trick that it had pulled in the train car. It flexed and another wave of energy arced out and slammed into the Ghostbusters. This time they were ready for it enough to brace their feet, but it still sent their proton streams shooting off into the sky and sent them scooting back about five or six feet.

The Panther let out another roar at them, obviously more annoyed than hurt, before taking off away from them. They watched as it ran toward the edge of the train yard and jumped the fence, causing a car to swerve and hit the fence as it took to running the streets.

Without saying a word, Jordan and Simon ran as quickly as they could to the van. When they got there, Jordan flipped open his cellphone and texted Cynthia as Simon peeled out of the gravel parking lot of the train yard and took off after the Ghost Panther.

Jordan snickered, "I don't know why I even bothered texting Cynthia."

Simon frowned as they took a corner and shot Jordan a look, "Why?"

"She's terrified of cats. Her grandmother had somewhere around thirty of the things and there was always at least one that wasn't in a good mood."

"Then it's great that you texted her," Simon smiled. "I'm going to love seeing her freak out."

Simon's ingenuity had built a docking station into the dashboard of the Ghostbusters Van. Jordan hadn't been entirely sure why until this very moment. He slammed the PKE Meter into it on Simon's instruction and watched as a repurposed heads-up display showed the PKE Meter screen in a larger reflection on the middle of the windshield.

"He's headed toward the East Village," Jordan noticed.

"Not if we can stop him first," Simon pointed ahead of the van. "There he is."

Simon pressed his foot on the gas and rocketed them toward the Ghost Panther. It was well into an almost forty mile per hour gallop that the van was making progress on, but even with the sirens the traffic was making it difficult to close the gap.

Jordan climbed into the back where his pack had landed in a heap with Simon's, and grabbed it before returning to his seat up front. Throwing one of the straps over the back of his seat, he grabbed the wand and leaned out of the open window of the van.

Pressing the right button, a proton stream leapt from his wand and in the general direction of the Ghost Panther. It didn't even seem to notice as the beam flashed over it's right side and hit a stop sign, incinerating it.

Jordan raised the wand higher and tried to sight down it's emitter. The moment that the spirited feline was in his imaginary sights, he fired again.

The blast was closer this time, but the Ghost Panther twisted unexpectedly and the proton stream slammed into the pavement blasting chunks of it everywhere and instantly melting a huge hole into the road.

Simon swerved the van, only narrowly missing the newly formed pothole and was struck with a thought.

"If we can get in front of it, I can hit it with the van-trap."

Jordan shook his head. "It wouldn't be happy with us in front of it. We need to corral it somewhere, first."

Simon nodded. "He seemed to flinch away from that last blast, maybe we can use the wands to direct him toward Pete Crivaro Park."

Jordan rolled his eyes, "I'll tell Cynthia it was your idea when the city calls wanting their potholes filled."

Jordan fired again, this time not trying to hit the Ghost Panther so much as steer it. The blast hit the pavement to the left of the beast and the Ghostbusters were rewarded with the turning of the giant cat to the right.

Another blast directly behind the Ghost Panther sent the purple spirit into a slightly faster sprint. Simon adjusted the velocity of the van accordingly and they continued in this manner for another mile or so before they were outside of Pete Crivaro Park.

"Get out," Simon demanded abruptly as the Ghost Panther entered the park.

"What?" Jordan was confused.

"Get out. I'll park the van at the other end of the park and you can push him toward it. I'll have the van set up and ready to trap him."

"You going to stop the van first? Or do I have to tuck and roll with a proton pack?"

Simon rolled his eyes and pulled over at the edge of the park, right where the Ghost Panther had entered it. Jordan jumped out and pulled the proton pack off of the back of his seat. Sliding it on, he jogged after the oversized kitten.

Once Jordan was clear of the van, Simon peeled out of the parking lot and began circling to the north side of the park. Once there he found a place where he could reverse the van so that the back end was facing the park. Once the van was in place, he ran out to join his companion.

As he approached, he saw Jordan battling the Ghost Panther with a fury of his own. Each blast kept hitting the beast in its flank causing it to yelp, jump and turn to find a new means of attack. While the giant cat might not have noticed, it was evident to Simon that Jordan was successfully pushing the Ghost Panther toward the north end of the park.

Simon was running up behind the Panther when it seemed to take notice of him. Turning, it decided that maybe this new plaything wasn't going to bite back as much. It lunged at Simon, but this time, Simon was prepared with his neutrino wand at the ready.

Blasting him in the face, the cat went tumbling back toward Jordan and in the wrong direction. The Ghost Panther recovered quickly, getting up and then smacking Jordan with its massive paw. Jordan flew across the park and landed in the sand of a small playground.

Before they could lose all of the progress that Jordan had accomplished, Simon ran around the Ghost Panther and took up Jordan's former position, blasting and directing the beast until his companion could join him again.

Once Jordan was beside him, they still had another 100 yards to go.

Struggling to keep the stream constantly hitting the Ghost Panther, Simon shouted, "We aren't anywhere near close enough for the trap."

Jordan nodded and shouted at the Ghost Panther, "Let's dance!"

Another roar brought with it another wave of energy, but the two Ghostbusters had been grown accustomed to this old trick already and ignored the wave as it pressed against them and tried to send them careening away from the giant cat.

Surprising both of them, the Ghost Panther did something that neither of them could have expected. It leapt straight up and into the air, using its undead ability to soar above them before coming down at both of them with paws outstretched and its jaw wide open.

Jumping away from each other, Simon and Jordan turned their wands at precisely the same moment and blasted the Ghost Panther in each of its sides as it came down right on top of where they were.

The combined effort from both sides had the unexpected result of helping them get a tether of proton stream around the beast for the first time in their battle. They had it, but it was a weak hold at best.

"There's no way," Simon was yelling, "that we'll be able to walk him closer to the van without losing breaking the proton stream."

Before Jordan could ask what Simon suggested that they do, he threw a glance up at where the van was to gauge the distance in his mind.

"Hey Simon," he yelled back to his friend.

"What?"

"Did you forget to put the parking brake on?"

Simon looked up to where the van had been parked and saw it rolling right toward them. He was about to scream to get out of the way when he saw the brake lights come on and the back door fly open.

"Did somebody call for backup?" Regina yelled with a smile.

She hopped out of the van just as Cynthia was stepping up beside the lever that would activate the giant trap that the van could become.

"Ready when you are boys," she yelled.

As one, Jordan and Simon yelled, "Do it!"

The rear end of the van shown like a spotlight across the park as energies shot from the back of it and grabbed at the spirit that they were wrestling.

Walking with the Ghost Panther and keeping their streams on it, they marched the beast right into the maw of their van.

Once the Ghost Panther was in, Cynthia released the trap lever and yanked Regina out of the way as the doors to the back of the van automatically slammed shut.

"Was that a giant cat?" Cynthia asked.

Jordan smiled. "Yup."

"Actually," Simon corrected, "it was a demigod that works in collaboration with Erra. The 'Furious Panther' out of the Seven."

"So, a big cat?"

He frowned and then nodded.

"More importantly," Simon continued, "they've discovered how to disperse their unused PKE energy to obtain camouflage."

Cynthia frowned and looked at Jordan.

"This thing was registering as a Class 1 until we woke it up. Then it gathered itself together and was turned into that thing in the back of the van," he clarified.

"They can hide?" Regina asked.

Simon nodded. "Our job seems to have suddenly become much more difficult."


	8. Episode 8: Dropping Off or Picking Up?

Episode 8 "Dropping Off or Picking Up?"

The van pulled into the parking lot after a short trip across town. Each of the Ghostbusters was tired and, even with their successful trap of one of the Seven, feeling defeated.

The recent discovery that their enemy could mask themselves by dispersing their P.K.E. energy brought the Ghostbusters back to square one. They were no closer to stopping Erra's rise to power and therefore just as far from finding Regina's brother, Blake.

Jordan drove the van back with the entirety of the team inside except Cynthia who followed them in her pickup truck.

Simon didn't bother parking the van in a spot, letting Cynthia park her truck in a space before parking the Ecto-Van directly in front of the door. In the last two weeks, their last neighbors in the adjoining offices packed up. The rumor was that they hadn't weren't fond of the supernatural elements of their newest neighbor.

Simon used a gadget in the back to siphon the big purple cat into a trap. The Ghostbusters still had their packs with them, as they had nowhere to store their packs with a large cat in the back of the vehicle. Grabbing his from Regina, Simon slung the straps over his shoulders but didn't snap the buckle at his waist.

As a very tired team, they climbed from their vehicles and somberly sauntered into their office.

Stopping once they were inside, Cynthia turned to the rest of them.

"I don't suppose that any of you have any new ideas about where we go from here?"

The door opened again, and a voice from behind them answered.

"Perhaps I might be able to help you with that?"

Walking in only steps behind them, was the Chairman.

Proton wands were drawn with practiced ease. Each of them aimed directly at the Chairman.

"Say another word, and you'll know what it feels like to become one of the dearly departed."

"My name-"

"The Chairman, we know," Regina said. Her grip on the proton wand was tight. If anyone was likely to learn the destructive capabilities of a proton stream when it touches flesh, it was going to be her.

"Um," The Chairman replied hesitantly, "no. That would be my title." He smiled at them in an almost jolly expression. "I was under the impression that the Ghostbusters were intelligent scientists."

Cynthia hooked her thumb at Simon. "He is. What's your name?"

"Martin Murray," his smile didn't waver. "I'm the Chairman of a group that would like to see an ancient force rise to power."

"Erra," Jordan supplied. His brow was furrowed and his eyes were distant.

"Correct. Jordan, correct?" Nobody answered Martin, so he continued. "Anyway, I'm here to-"

"Grab the zip-ties," Cynthia barked, interrupting Martin Murray. "Top drawer of my desk."

Jordan snapped from his daze long enough to ask, "Zip-ties?"

"Now."

Jordan holstered his wand and moved to Cynthia's desk. He came straight back with the zip-ties.

"Put them on him," Cynthia ordered, "tight."

Jordan stepped forward and took the Chairman's wrists as he offered them up. When they were in the zip-ties, Cynthia kicked over a desk chair on wheels.

The Chairman stepped toward it and sat down.

"I'm all snug and you are all armed," he said. "May I continue?"

When no one said anything, he continued exactly where he had left off. "The people that I represent have tired of conventional wealth." He crossed his legs, getting comfortable despite his shackled wrists. "In their search for something new, they discovered the stories of your adversary, Erra."

Jordan was staring at the Chairman intently. "The rise of the Seven. Chaos on Earth. Marduk surrendered his throne in order to avoid the havoc that Erra brought."

Martin frowned but nodded. "Things were kind of a mess, to be sure, but there were people who aided in Erra's rise and they were rewarded with powers beyond mortal comprehension." He shrugged. "So, that's what we're doing." Martin waggled his bound hands toward Regina. "We want power. The power to remold the world into something better." He held up his palms, urging them not to interrupt him. "The usual villain line, always neatly packaged in that arrogant sentence. 'I only want to change the world to make it a better place.' I know what you're thinking and it sounds evil, but what have we done that's been evil? Possessions? None of them were taken unwillingly. Every possession is less a possession and mutual symbiosis. And the people involved? All leaders of political and economic arenas. We have a mutually beneficial allegiance with these beings and we're striving for a better society."

Simon shook his head, "Except that you're dealing with Erra, a god of chaos.

"Oh, come on," The Chairman scrunched up his face. "Grow up. Erra has. Those stories are how old? Almost 3000 years. If people can mature, why can't gods?"

"What does Erra want in exchange for this power?" Cynthia asked.

Martin frowned and became much less animated. "Unfortunately, I'm not at liberty to say. As part of our deal with him."

"Of course," Cynthia rolled her eyes at their captive. "We get it. You're not a bad person, you want fairy dust to sprinkle down on the world, but you can't convince us of your benevolence while working with a lord of chaos who's kidnapped her brother and who's already caused hell all over this city."

Martin nodded, seeming to accept Cynthia's words as fact. "Let me get my offer out, then you can do what you like." He sighed. "Erra is going to win. That song has already been sung, but we still have a note to play. This evening we'll be using a religious center to gather as much spiritual energy as we can out of Des Moines and it would move smoother without your involvement. So, in exchange for you ignoring us for the evening, we would be willing to offer you anything you requested."

"Anything?" Simon asked. "Like, if we wanted you to leave Des Moines and never return, you'd pack up right now?"

"My bags are in the car."

"What about my brother?" Regina asked.

The Chairman hesitated before answering. "I believe that would be outside of my control. Erra is –"

Regina shot him with a proton stream.

"Holy shit!" Simon shouted.

Cynthia holstered her wand and spun on Regina, yanking the younger woman's wand out of her hand.

"What the hell was that?" She turned to Simon. "Get her out of this pack."

Simon hesitated only a bit before running forward and unlatching the buckle of Regina's pack.

He looked to where Jordan still stood, staring at the corpse of the Chairman, Martin Murray.

"A little help, Ross."

"He's not dead."

"What," Simon spun and looked directly at the Chairman with a gaping whole in his chest that was large enough to slide a person through. His eyes were dead and it was obvious that the body had no animating spirit left in it.

"They don't get any deader," Simon said dryly.

Jordan walked over to the body and grabbed the edges of the wound, pulling them out and stretching them. They formed a thick goop into his hands and dripped away like silly putty.

"He's not dead," Jordan repeated, "because he wasn't real."

Everyone stopped what they were doing as the body melted to an odd pile of flesh-colored goop.

"His parlay was bogus," Regina was filled with rage. "The whole thing stunk from the moment that he came in here."

Cynthia jabbed her finger into Regina's face. Regina didn't flinch. "You didn't know that he was…" she gestured wildly at the puddle. "You shot him with a nuclear weapon."

"And he betrayed my brother and killed your friend," Regina's eyes were filled with tears, but anger was all that came through. "I will not regret shooting him."

Simon slid the pack off of her back and set it on the nearby desk.

"You're benched," was all Cynthia had to say to Regina before turning to Jordan. "What is that?"

"Magic," he wavered as he crouched over the stuff. "Can't you feel it? It's radiating as if it's nuclear."

"No, we can't feel anything," Simon turned and ran back to his workshop.

Ignoring him, Cynthia urged Jordan to continue.

"It's a homunculus, a magical clone. People with enough magical energy can create duplicates of themselves that they can control remotely."

Simon came back in a rush carrying a device that looked like the P.K.E. meter but was much larger. He waved it over Jordan before nodding.

"This measures, well, a lot of different energy signatures. It's getting a blip from Jordan." He smiled, excited by the prospect. "I think he has latent magical talent."

"Great," Regina said. "Get him a broom and let's go after the assholes that have my brother."

Cynthia shot her a glare before turning back to Simon. "What does that mean?"

"Probably nothing unless he can develop it further."

"I knew that the Chairman wasn't real," Jordan said. "I didn't know what it was, but he felt like he was giving off waves of energy."

"Like a living P.K.E. meter," Simon smiled. "That's cool."

"How is this possible?" Cynthia asked.

Simon shrugged. "The current theory is that people with dormant magical ability in their bloodline can have it activated by spiritual trauma."

"Like our jobs," Cynthia agreed.

"I think I have relatives that were burned in Salem," Jordan added.

"Unless you need to sit this out, we need to get back to the issue at hand." Jordan nodded to Cynthia that he was fine and she continued. "We just had the leader of Team Chaos in here, and thanks to our hot headed rookie, we still know nothing more than we did an hour ago."

Regina didn't flinch at the accusation.

"That's not necessarily true," Jordan said.

"What isn't?" Simon asked.

"I think I know where they are," Jordan was suddenly animated. "Martin said that they needed to channel spiritual energy. The largest center for spiritual energy tonight is going to be the evening mass at Hope Lutheran Church."

"It has the largest membership in the state," Simon agreed.

"Evening mass will give them enough power to do whatever the hell it is they need to do?" Regina asked.

Simon shrugged. "I guess so. Although, if Erra is already riding shotgun in your brother, than what else is there to do?"

"He's stuck in your brother," Jordan answered. "Erra is here, but his power isn't. That's why he's been staying hidden, and that's why he needs spiritual energy. He's going to use it to give himself back his power."

"Simon," Cynthia turned to the scientist, "would the slime free Regina's brother?"

"Before he gets his power, yes, it should. If we wait until after he has enough energy to be at full strength, than we won't be able to contain him."

Jordan frowned. "With that much power, he won't just release Blake either. He'll burn through him to make his way fully into our world."

Cynthia spun and jabbed her finger at Regina for a second time. "You're on the slime thrower. No destructive weapons, you're on probation. Everyone else, get into the van."

The large church that was Hope Lutheran was in West Des Moines, and it took the Ghostbusters twenty minutes to get across town, even with the sirens blaring. The parking lot was packed, but that didn't slow the Ghostbusters. Instead, they parked directly in front of the door, unloaded and ran in.

Walking the halls, they strode directly toward the mass. The huge double doors were shut, but they could hear the sermon from the lobby.

They opened the doors quietly, but every head still turned toward them as they circled the auditorium in search of the Chairman.

They were so intent on their search that they each let out a little yelp when the minister spoke.

"Is there something that we can do to help you, Ghostbusters?"

When their eyes fell on the minister, they each brought up their weapons, even though Jordan and Regina's slime throwers didn't have the range to hit him from where they stood.

The crowd was obviously confused, but stay quiet.

"Where's Erra?" Cynthia demanded.

"Excuse me?" Martin Murray smiled as he pretended not to understand the question.

Cynthia stared at the Chairman without repeating her question.

"Oh," he said as imaginary insight suddenly came to him. "You're referencing the diety that asked me to keep you busy while he remade reality."

In that instance, everyone in the the ceremony vanished. They had never been there. The Chairman's arms stretched out and he levitated up, stopping about ten feet from the floor.

"He will be most pleased with me when you are dead and he can add your souls to his power."

"Can we hit him now?" Regina asked.

Cynthia answered by shooting her own proton stream at the floating disciple of Erra.

A shield of energy enveloped the Chairman and absorbed the impact of the proton stream. Jordan and Regina joined in with their slime throwers. Pews tore from the flooring and sailed across to take them out, but not before slime passed through the shield and hit the Chairman. He fell to the ground as the positively charged mood slime absorbed his powers.

As he fell to the ground, Cynthia shouted again. "Where's Erra?"

The Chairman started laughing as his body continued to absorb her proton stream.

"Simon," she shouted next, "hit him!"

Simon nodded and threw his own stream into the mix.

Simon's stream hit the Chairman's arm. It sliced off, as if cut by a large sword. The limb fell toward the floor, but before it touched down, it disintegrated in a burst of dust.

"It's another clone," Jordan shouted.

Cynthia's eyes went wide. "A clone? Why a clone?"

Jordan lowered his slime thrower and looked at Cynthia. Over the sound of the Chairman's laughter, he said, "This is a distraction."

Understanding reached Jordan's eyes as they filled with horror.

Simon turned off his stream as the rest of the cloned Chairman suddenly disintegrated.

"I was wrong," Jordan shouted and then began running out of the church.

When they all caught up with him at the van he was already in the driver's seat and waving them in.

"Hurry up!" he shouted. "I was wrong," Jordan repeated. "The church was a distraction. It's not the largest source of spiritual power in the city."

Cynthia suddenly understood. "The containment unit."


End file.
